It’s no good whining and carrying on about it. I mean, our media are and always will be, obsessed with celebrities. It's the way the cookie crumbles, and if I am mixing my metaphors, hard cheese. Why this sudden urge on my part to get all antsy about celebrities and the media? Well, you can judge for yourself. Padma Lakshmi, an American citizen (don’t be taken in by the name), celebrity author of award winning cookery book, Easy Exotic, sometime life partner of top gun author Salman Rushdie, and sometime top model as well. Beauty, brains and the good life - some people have it all. Or do they?
Recently Padma Lakshmi revealed that she was raped at the age of 16. This was prominently headlined in all our newspapers, and social media went all of a twitter, as is its wont. We further have it on record that the unfortunate Padma was also touched inappropriately by an elderly family relative when she was only 7. Padma was explicit as to the nature of the inappropriateness, but this being a family newspaper, we’ll let that pass. While one can commiserate with Padma’s childhood traumas, one is also tempted to say, ‘Big deal’. Not to be cynical about the lady's early misfortunes (after all, she came out of it very well), but to scoff at our media for making such a brouhaha only because a lady of Indian Tamil Brahmin origin, now a shining star in glitzville, decided to bare it all.
My point is simple. Some child or the other in India is being molested and/or murdered every day all over the country, and hardly anyone takes a blind bit of notice. ‘6 year-old child raped by 7 teenagers and left for dead’, or its variants is a common enough minor daily news item. Most of us merely sigh resignedly and quickly move on to the sports pages. But let the demure Padma Lakshmi tell her tale of woe, and everyone is rivetted. It's just the way it is, but I thought this was worthy of a bit of spleen venting, in case the media want to reflect thoughtfully upon it. Wishful thinking, I know. Tomorrow, firebrand author and activist Arundhati Roy will decide to talk about her childhood, and we’ll be off again.
At least Padma Lakshmi’s recounting of her horrors held out a salutary lesson and a disturbing mirror for society at large, reemphasising the need for the Government and its agencies to play a more forceful and proactive role in dealing with such atrocities, and the media could be excused for highlighting this, even if they went a tad overboard. No such reasoned argument exists for the hullabaloo created over Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, alighting from her car and closing the door behind her. We do that automatically. It's a reflex action, shutting the car door behind you. Yet, British aristocracy and etiquette demand that royal personages should not close the door when they get out of the car. They should just step out gingerly and leave the complex procedure of closing the door noiselessly to one of the liveried foot servants.
Now, as we all know Meghan Markle is not originally from royal stock. She is just an everyday American actress who made a name for herself in the hugely popular legal TV drama series, Suits. As it happens, Suits involved plenty of scenes of actors stepping out of limousines and slamming doors shut in anger, or gently clicking the door if in a good mood. So Meghan was so accustomed to this door closing routine, she forgot all about observing royal etiquette, now that she is a princess. On the face of it, a small matter but the British tabloids had a field day chortling over this footling faux pas. The Indian media were quick to follow suit, and our papers splashed Meghan’s stepping out of line, as it were, quite prominently. Alas poor Meghan! It’s tough being a royal.
And hot off the presses, we learn about the horrific gunning down of 22-year old Tara Fares. Tara who? Quite so. Not a household name here in India, but a celebrity model in Baghdad, a fashionista followed by over 2.7 million adoring fans on Instagram. Her fashion statements on the site highlighting her sporting tattoos, vibrant hair colours and ‘adventurous’ clothes, incurred the wrath of those with a more fundamentalist bent of mind. Bent being the operative word. She stopped three bullets while driving around in her Porsche and that was that. As I said, we in India have no idea who Tara Fares is but that did not stop our media from highlighting the incident. At least, I can satisfy myself that I learnt something about someone I knew nothing about. Too late to help her, though. One thing's for sure. In death, Tara Fares will remain a celebrity for life. We have our celebrity obsessed media to thank for that.
As this piece winds down to its conclusion, word filters through of one Tanushree Dutta, a Bollywood actress of no known provenance, deciding to name names of actors who have been allegedly less than Chaucer’s verray parfit gentil knight with her, targeting her with lecherous intent. And how do we know this? Why, it was revealed by none other than the celebrity, pulp fiction writer who specialises in high society shenanigans, she of the numerologically extended first name, Shobhaa De, author of Starry Nights and Sultry Days amongst other steamy tomes. Good on you Tanushree, but we bow to the catty Shobhaa De for bringing it to our notice.
Finally, the media ogles topless Serena Williams, tennis supremo and enfant terrible, baring more than her décolletage in a good cause - breast cancer awareness. She did cover her modesty with her hands while swaying to the hit song, I touch myself. We are touched, Serena.
(The author is a brand consultant with an interest in music, cricket, humour and satire)
