Desperately Seeking Fame
Bomb blasts. Terrorism. The Kashmir Conflict. Earthquakes. The Homeless. AIDS. Spiraling Inflation. Rampant Corruption. Farmer Suicides. Iraq. Georgia. Mugabe. Musharraf. Holes in the Ozone. Oil prices. Human Rights. Avian Flu. Animal Rights. Human Genocide.
Are you having an anxiety attack? Quick turn on the television and find a replacement topic. Rush, switch to Zoom, Star World or Zee café ! Hurry , find out everything about Aishwarya’s Bhindi Bhaaji recipe right now!
If we did not have Rakhee Sawant’s tantrums or Salman Khan’s cleavage to think about we would all go crazy! It’s true. The media knows exactly what to do. Focus your attention on Koffee with Karan- Johar questioning whether Katrina Kaif would prefer to lip-lock with Madonna or Britney Spears. The New York Governors Escort Service, John Edward’s Mistress. The Pregnant Man.
They keep your brains brimming with rubbish . Because if you didn’t you might think about stuff. Like- When the whole world is cutting back on expenses, how does the Indian Government unashamedly commit 55,000 crores of hard-earned taxpayer money to a salary hike for Government babus.
If you had a life free from anxiety, with some chance of personal fulfillment and happiness (yeah right!) or the slightest notion that you have control over your destiny , you wouldn’t give a flying fig whether Lindsey Lohan married Ellen DeGeneres while pregnant with Shoaib Akhtar’s baby.
But you don’t ,so you do.
In these sordid, decaying times you have come to believe that unless you are a celebrity, you do not exist. If the media is not focused on your every gesture, it didn’t happen. Private despair, Acts of heroism and sacrifice, soul-wrenching tragedy, so what, who cares? It’s like a tree falling in a forest.
So now the frenzied desire to achieve celebritude and therefore existence. The ever-obliging media obliges. New reality shows for wannabes get created for television; new glamour magazines hit the stands citing the latest icons in fashion, lifestyle and showcasing jet setting party animals.
However some of you are never going to make it to Celebrityland. You don’t have what it takes, you’re always picking your nose in front of paparazzi cameras. Instead you try to be close to celebrities, you try to brush up against them, hoping to get some of their glitter-dust on your shoulder.
You have to consider that you also need something to talk about when you party with strangers. What do you say to the lady seated on the barstool next to you? “Hi, Do you come here often”? “What’s your zodiac sign”? “Hello Big Bottom”? No. You can now comfortably ease into a conversation with a perfect stranger about how much you hate and despise Paris Hilton and everything she stands for. And when you get tired of this you can talk about what a retard Govinda or Bush is. Deepika Padukone’s hairdo,. Sania Mirza’s outfits.
Celebrities become your common frame of reference, be it celebrity revilement or adulation. It crosses all cultural boundaries. Celebrities are now your community, not just a part of it.
But I feel sorry for them. Yes, I do. The moment a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he/she becomes an alien mutant. Shah Rukh Khan (name changed to protect his identity), Kareena Kapoor and now Abhinav Bindra were once perfectly pleasant human beings with whom you might share a Vada Pau at Bandra Bandstand on a slow Monday evening..
But now they’ve become supreme beings with everyone stalking them and basking in their reflected glory. The focus of clawing, salivating attention seekers everywhere. It’s not what they expected. When the Cosmos wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you , it grants you your deepest wish, and then laughs when you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself.
Shah Rukh, Kareena and Abhinav , fervently, more than us lesser mortals, wanted fame. They slaved, they pushed, they stepped on other people’s faces in their bid to satisfy this desperate need.
“If I can be famous, people will worship me and not notice how short I am”, thought Shah Rukh Khan.
“If I can be famous, I can get liposuction and fool around with Saif”, reasoned Kareena.
“If I can be famous, I can walk around town with a loaded gun, and girls will notice me,” Abhinav hoped.
The night they became famous they suppressed a wild urge to run naked through the town crying,”Eureka, Eureka!” Finally! Now they were famous, adored, invincible. The genie had delivered.
However, the next morning when they awoke, each of them wanted to take an overdose of sleeping pills.
All their fantasies had been realized. Yet the reality remained. Their misery before was now twice as bad, because that elusive fame that they were striving for, that would make everything rosy, and makes their lives bearable, and provide them with happiness and fulfillment had happened.
Nothing changed. They were still human. The disillusionment turned them howling and insufferable. They became public property; succumbing fatally to the branding virus, forever doomed to appear on commercial television; advertising asinine beauty care products, white goods and automobiles, over and over and over again....ad nauseum.
Hey! Anybody care for a Lays chip? Betcha can't eat just one!
P.S. No Celebrities were killed, hurt or maimed in the production of the above article !
