Beep, beep. Ridiculous Celebrity Headline alert. Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai are engaged! Now isn't this the most groundbreaking piece of news imaginable! Front-page material, most definitely. George W. Bush's ingenious insurge plans (or is that insurgency?) and Noida's serial killer/cannibal can be comfortably pushed to page two. Yes, the Abhi-Ash engagement deserves the hugest media attention - every newspaper must devote at least half of its front page to the critical event, and news channels must unhesitatingly unleash the exact painstaking details about the entire episode as their 'top story'. After all, every single Indian, and many non-Indians too, are going to be deeply affected by this earth-shattering development and so, of course, it's the media's sacred duty to keep them thoroughly well-informed.
Are you kidding me? Who cares that two of the most publicity-hungry individuals in the country decided to gather a little more publicity by the simple matter of the announcement of an engagement? This was just a brilliantly executed PR exercise, for God's sake. And considering how conveniently close the announcement was to the release of their movie together, Guru, can anyone find fault with their stunningly effective move? It's not for nothing that Mr. Amitabh Bachchan's family has been accorded the prestigious title of 'Bollywood's First Family'. These guys know how to keep the media, and the public too, for good measure, passionately interested in anything and everything that they do. It's one of the advantages of having been blessed with superstardom two decades ago - fame can teach you how to handle an entire country. And predictably, the media lapped it all up; just days after the incident of the Bachchans walking a considerable distance to a temple, barefoot, made front-page news, came the report of the momentous engagement, which was given as much reverence as the testing of a nuclear weapon. The beautiful Ms Rai played her part quite effectively too; subtlety has taken a long time in becoming a part of her many charms, but it finally has, and the talented former Miss World ensured that the delay would not go in vain. The effect was deadly - with Ash doggedly dodging the media, Abhishek valiantly going about promoting Guru, and none other than Amitabh Bachchan himself making the formal announcement, the family had it all covered. Brilliant strategy, if you ask me. And guess what, Guru has taken a very good initial too. Stroke of genius!
The saddest thing about this whole affair is the fact that the media is making Indian sensibilities go the Hollywood way. A few years ago not many would have cared how many cans of Pepsi Shahrukh Khan drinks in a day or what Hrithik Roshan's kid's first words were. Now, however, people have actually begun to take interest in such sordid things. And I blame the media squarely for this monstrous turn of events. Particuarly the news channels, who sometimes take such concerted efforts to champion such hopeless non-issues that you actually fear for their sanity. Remember the infamous Shahid-Kareena Kapoor kissing incident?
In defence of the Indian media, they''re only taking a few cues from their counterparts from the West. There, the celebrities and the media have together done such a terrific job of whipping up interest among the common public in even the most awfully insignificant things that it is truly remarkable. The TomCruise-Katie Holmes courtship/wedding made a lot of money for a lot of people, and you've only got to thank the American public's excited interest in the personal lives of their celebrities for that. In fact, so much curiosity and brouhaha was created out of the relationship that even I was induced to watch a couple of movies of the previously unknown Katie Holmes, both of which were eminently rubbish (Distrubing Behavior and Teaching Mrs. Tingle, just in case you need to be warned). The 'Brangelina' episode still dominates headlines, and so do Britney Spears'/Paris Hilton's/Lindsay Lohan's daring escapades, Mel Gibson's occasional lapses into raving insanity, Scarlett Johannson's eternal desire to appear on screen unclothed and Ashton Kutcher's many unfortunate travails that have come from marying an older woman. But I didn't think it possible that our Bollywood stars could even come close to becoming as eccentric and greedy for publicity as their Hollywood counterparts. Sadly, however, they are well and truly on their way to doing so, aided and abetted by the headline-happy media. And to my great discomfort, neither the stars nor the media have been deterred by the initial lack of excitement among the Indian public - they've got a mission to accomplish, and from the looks of things, they're eventually going to accomplish it resoundingly. We humans only need a reason and an occasion to go prying into the lives of others. And when the media willingly provides so many reasons and occasions, and the 'others' lead such magnificently glamorous lives, can we possibly resist the temptation? Tragically, no.
So is there any solution to the madness that will soon engulf us all? Probably not. No wait, I've got an idea - why don't we just shoot all celebrities? Hmm, that'll probably not be too humane. And it might just make our lives a little boring. Hey, I've got another one - let's shoot all the tabloid journalists! No, that wouldn't work either, because we'd never get hold of ALL of them. Alright, before I get any more macabre, I'll stop here. And I hope Ash ditches Abhishek just as cruelly as she did Vivek Oberoi. He hardly deserves someone as beautiful as her.
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