Stellar Epiphanies

I never dreamed that one day I would shake hands with Madhavan or rub shoulders with Hansika. Not that any of these were my life's amibitions, but it is sort of strange how it turned out like this. Happily meandering through the meadows of my life, I end up in glamworld, seeing Trisha, Dhanush, Sania Mirza, Jiiva and god knows who else up close. I could stretch my hands and touch them. They have always been the stuff of tv and newspaper ads. Dhanush was nothing more than Kolaveri's mindless lyrics two months ago. Yesterday I saw him in his black suit and tie, and he is alive, kicking. What is it about the media that creates this kind of up-there world that the common man lives out his days thinking it exists but in a way that does not matter to him.

Dhanush presents the award to Sania

Trisha getting the award from Maddy and Jiiva

Yes they are stars, they throw tantrums, they are insecure, they are bored, they are haughty. And in the end with the red-carpet celebrities, the endlessly flashing cameras, the glitz, glamour, the 10-inch heels and blinding lights, they are just human beings. It is that easy. There is no stepping stone between stardom and commonality- it is not another 'world' somehwere else. It is just an artifice of manners, airs and dresses, colours, hairdos, accessories, makeup.


Hansika receiving the award from Khushboo

My first experience in a 5 star hotel, all dolled up and waiting as an escort to a major South Indian celebrity, was something I will never forget. My pretty colleague and the centre of attention, tossed her hair and gave Madhavan a dazzling smile. She was supposed to escort Maddy and Sania both to the venue. My heart was palpitating with the thought of waiting it out for my celebrity whose flight had landed later than all the others. I call reception from my changing room. She has already arrived, room xyz, he tells me. I straighten the wrinkles on my white anarkali, slip on my lace slippers and make my way down. Dimly lit passageways, ornate walls and ceilings, a maze of empty hallways and room after room with numbers in gold-301, 302, 303, 304. Reminds me strangely of hotel california. A cold fear clenches my heart and I head to the lift, a little traumatised about potential faux-pas. I find room xyz, the door is open. The image I see will probably never leave me. Across the narrow passage into the room, she sits at a table, one hand on the lap the other holding a phone to the ear; her attendants moving about her busily like house elves. The first thing I see is the thick layer of make up on her face and her fake eyelashes that make her look a little scary up close. I introduce myself shakily and she acknowledges me briefly. She is skinny and her thick hair is permed and left untied. Beside her on the floor, lie massively elevated black heels with gold studs at the ankles. "There is something in her eye," she is saying, visibly upset as I make for the door and go to the lobby to wait for her.

After 15 min, she struts into the lobby  in black skinnies and a top of the same colour. She looks like a gothic rockstar. She certainly knows how to carry it off. Her mother hovers by her side, a tad overdressed but grand never the same.We wait for the corolla, I slide in front beside the driver while the grand ladies sit at the back. The ride is quiet and ghostly. I make light conversation of flights and trips. I notice that the mother's eyes are nearly closed. She seems to be in pain. I enquire about her health. Faux-pas. The celebrity's voice quivers. I think she even sniffs and sobs at the back. She is going to have a breakdown at the set, she sniffs. Her mother has some sort of eye haemorrhage and needs to get checked. The celebrity is worried and afraid and the mother reassures her that she will be fine. "Insecure, afraid, vulnerable," I note in my mind.
We reach the red carpet venue, she alights and in her gait she is the rockstar again. Flashing cameras, pointy stilettos. No more tears, no fear. She smiles photogenically and disappears into the auditorium to her VIP seat while I instruct the driver to reverse the car into the parking slot.

Moulds

This morning I woke up with a strange thought, not that most mornings I don't, but this morning it topped the list of strange thoughts. What if, the little wisp of a thought peeked into my mindspace and whispered,one doomed day the devil appeared before me in all his traditional attire of red horns and arrow shaped tail and told me that I had not lived my life right, that I had wasted all the opportunities given to me and that they would now have to be given away to someone else who could better use them. What would I do? He would however, have taken pity on my mortified little face and said that only one talent would be left to me to use in this life. Which one would I choose? "Mind you," he would raise his 'circonflex' eyebrows and remind me,"you would be doomed to eat, drink and live this talent for every waking moment of your life, so choose carefully." Well then, in my cringing mind, I would scurry and stumble rummaging into all my intellectual belongings for what I could give away and what I could not part with. (Sadly, I didn't have much.) But it made me think; is there something I could do for every waking moment of my life, do I have anything that I can truly call my own, my very own talent which nobody could use as best as I could? He would tap his foot impatiently at my rambling introspections and frown.

An Affair to Remember

Some of you young Indian women out there might often find yourselves in the excruciating position of falling for a younger guy. What's the problem with that you’ll say.  Of course by 'you' I mean the 21^st century, boisterously modern, live-in relationship crusader- the kind of liberal, women’s rights upholder who sips apple martini and puts on vermilion and a colourful tunnel of bangles with equal panache.  Traditions are traditions. No matter how experimental and unconventional you are with your own life, you still want a husband who makes a solid, double digit salary in lakhs per annum. You might respect art and rhapsodize about modernist poetry over a round of paan-rasna flavoured hooka but in the end it’s the guy who pays for it that you want to pocket for your own. Of course, we all want ‘the good life’. Chetan Bhagat has lots to say about that.

But, feminine reader, I digress. The younger guy- he’s the protagonist of this story. He is the one who upturns your world and makes you go through hell. Not only is he younger, he is also lost and aimless. He adventurously defies all that comes to your mind with the word ‘stability’. As a major post-script he also earns less than you do. Social disapproval hounds you in your dreaming, waking and dazed moments. You don’t want to be a good catch. In fact you want to make the good catch. He puts you through the social blasphemy of an ‘ill matched couple.’

But then, the dotted bubble conjures up in your mind’s eye. He has a boyish charm. He smiles his dazzling Johnny Bravo smile and makes the caterpillars go bonkers in your tummy. By the time you reach the butterflies in the tummy stage, he is close enough for you to smell that lingering, masculine perfume that makes your knees weak. He is gentle, and he is harmless- so you think. He lets you be the one in charge. You anyway know more than he does, so you feel, you’ve seen the world more than he has. But even so, his youthfulness draws you. It refreshes the staleness of your own age and point of view.

You’ve discussed all this over a smoke with those intellectual friends of yours. You’ve used big words and complex sentences to sanctify your lust and that works for a while- because to your friends you say that it’s about how he has awakened a new reason to be yourself. Your friends wear the same coloured glasses. They encourage you. Go on, be yourself. Age doesn't matter. But to you it does- behind your brazen modernity, your familial bonds gnaw at you. You imagine social gatherings, what people might say, that pretty cousin of yours who did better than you when everyone thought you would. Those truck-load of expectations. No. This is your life, you say firmly and decide to throw him over. You can't live a miserable life of woeful comparison and the thought of "all that could have been" lurking at every step. Yes, so you decide to throw him over. You waver in dismay. But the feeling of buoyance carries you through those weighty moral qualms.

 Finally you decide you’ve rediscovered how to enjoy life and how to look forward to things. So you think. His childishness amuses your serene superiority, his naivety makes you feel that in some way whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he needs you. Ah, but that damn age difference. Those 3 or 4 slippery years in between. The younger guy is perceptive and persistent. He senses your dilemma. More importantly he senses you have yielded. It’s complicated, you say. With women it always is, he replies with a  wisdom beyond his years that shocks you into admiration. Perhaps you are both even intellectually suited, you check a box in your pros list. He makes you feel special. Ah, but that damn age difference. If only.

And then there are those times, when his puppy dog eyes seem just that. You crave a large, muscular German Shepherd and all he looks like is a furry, little Pomeranian with black beady eyes the size of olives. You don’t want a pet, you want a companion, you explain to a friend with a sense of solemn gravity over a session of deep conditioning hair spa.

Your moral dilemma eats you up inside. Is it love? It can’t be. You send a billion texts to each other with angry, sad, happy, doubtful and neutral smileys. He sends you a kissing smiley and your heart flutters like a paper plane and settles into autopilot. You keep your distance and send a hug instead. He admits finally that he loves you. You hem and haw. What is love, you ask. It’s complicated, you repeat. Like math? He texts. No, you retort. More complicated than math? No, I didn’t mean it like that. Complicated like a girl’s mind- tongue in cheek smiley. You love the way he turns an awkward situation into a joke.

The situation goes on for a while. Your life continues in its tortuous conflicts and you feel you have a lot to think about. A lot to sort. The younger guy is strangely resilient and has found many other fish to fry- and that makes you die just a little. But then, he’s young, you conclude and shove it under the carpet. Then one day you happen to pick up his cell phone and flip through the texts that he has sent to a dozen other girls. Some of them with the same kissing smileys and the same one liners that knocked the breath out of you. But this time they really do knock the breath out you. You don’t want to run to your friends because you have been the fool. Nah, he’s not my type after all, you tell them nonchalantly over the treadmill. You do not want to confide because society has got back to you with a vengeance. Well then, you shrug. Things are the way they should be and you make plans for a movie with your girlfriends.