Hyderabad Coverages

Asian Age Coverage

Superstar INdia Excerpts - 6

I’m amazed that with all our new-found success in virtually every field, including fashion, we are still enamoured of all things Western. Is it just a hang-over from the colonial past? But then, our youth (remember, over 50 per cent of our one billion people are under thirty-five years old) have no recall of pre-Independence India. They neither know nor care what happened sixty years ago. They’re far too busy enjoying the here-and-now. A Shakira concert generates more excitement than if Charles and Camilla come a-calling. It is the grandparents who can still remember a time when the goras ruled. And, shocking as it sounds, a few from that generation speak nostalgically about how wonderful life used to be when the ‘saabs and memsaabs’ ruled India. One feels sorry for them, especially if they happen to be educated. It’s another thing to hear a seventy-five-year-old bearer in one of those ancient clubs in, say, Coonoor, going on and on about what a pleasure it used to be to serve gora tea estate managers, and how well-behaved their baba-log were compared to the junglee bachchas of today’s natives. ‘India was better off under the British’—one can still overhear such comments, spoken without shame or self-consciousness. As and when I do, I seethe a little, bristle a little, but keep quiet. Not because I think every Indian has to be unconditionally pro- India, but because I feel it’s shameful to want to go back to virtual slavery, regardless of how enlightened and terrific the masters were. No self-respecting individual would (or should) want to endorse non-freedom. But such is the paradox in our perplexing country!

Superstar India Excerpts - 5

Oh please—let’s just dump that Kamasutra fixation and be honest with ourselves. Indians copulate. So does the rest of the world. Period. Are we great, even good lovers? I seriously doubt that. Do we copulate more than our global counterparts? Possibly. But that’s also because we have fewer diversions or, at any rate, that was the case till satellite TV ‘happened’ to us. Sex vs entertainment? That’s a nobrainer. Indian are having their most torrid love affair ever— with their TV sets. Nothing is as big a turn-on for us as that flickering image, and of course, the throbbing organ in our hands—the remote control. We can’t get enough from over 100-plus TV channels.

Superstar India Excerpts - 4

Extravagant weddings are such a collosal waste—why not give the young couple a better start to their lives by giving them money instead of an elaborate mehendi-sangeet reception with a cast of thousands of strangers? Big weddings are a nightmare—people come, people eat and drink, people leave, people criticize and people forget. All that effort, planning, anxiety, insecurity, spread over months, goes straight down the tube. A few years later, something goes ‘phut’ and the marriage is called off. But does that matter any more? Last week I received an elaborate, gold-edged invitation to a beautiful young woman’s third wedding! I was bothastonished and delighted … why not? Here’s a gal who refuses to give up, like Liz Taylor. She obviously loves getting married and wants each wedding to be extra-special, with all possible trimmings in place. This is the new India—nobody blinks when the bride says, ‘I do’ for the third time, surrounded by the very people who’ve attended her previous shaadis. She invites former husbands and countless exes who show up sportingly to wish the newly-weds. This is not a Bollywood script. It is happening… and if some sour-puss aunt does not approve … well, she needn’t join the party!

Superstar India Excerpts - 3

Sometimes, when I reluctantly participate in those meaningless TV debates on the New India or Sexy India, I feel like an imposter. Most of the other panellists arrive with personal agendas. They are there to push away …plug their latest product, be it a movie, ad, spiritual mantraor political goal. And me? I’m there to add two vital elements:
1) the token female perspective and
2) a dash of colour/glamour.

All of us bleat away on how fantastic it feels to be an Indian today. How amazing it is that the worldis finally recognizing our real worth and giving us ‘respect’. I feel depressed at the end of all the chest-thumping. And ask myself how much of this new strut is self-delusionary. Whom are we kidding? And, by trotting them out often enough, will we really start believing our own illusions about ourselves?

Superstar India Excerpts - 2

India has to make up its mind on this score—how does it rate on the current cool quotient? I’d say, pretty high. Neo-Indians are highly enamoured of the relaxed attitude. They can identify with it far more thanmy generation could condone the hypocrisies of the pseudo-socialists who preached Gandhian austerity but lived like kings. Am I equally guilty? Neo-Indians love extravagance. Splurge is the bold name of a weekend supplement that encourages readers to indulge without guilt. Another magazine is devoted to spas and spa treatments, some of which are pegged at Rs 6,000 an hour (‘cheap by New York standards,’ says a friend). That used to be, till just two decades ago, the average pay cheque for a salaried professional who’d put in at least ten years of service. I remember my own exultation when I crossed the important Rs 5,000-barrier. I really thought I’d become a millionaire. Today, my driver earns much more than that. And chances are, given half a chance, my young daughters would blow that amount in a single night on the town—infact, the youngest did just that on New Year’s Eve.