Tributes to Rajesh Khanna – Can the media please be truthful?

(Image Courtesy: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-19/news-interviews/32746221_1_rajesh-khanna-film-industry-isolation)

Last fortnight saw the death of a superstar. Rajesh Khanna perhaps took up as much newsprint and on air time in his death as he did in the prime of his acting career. Most reports and features were tributes to his great performances as an actor, and many took the liberty of gently admonishing today’s filmmakers by extolling the values of the 19070s era (romance and charm versus the ruthless violence shown in movies today).


Few reports mentioned his well publicized personal life – radically different from his on screen persona – or even made a mention of his failures (and there were many). Vir Sanghvi’s piece in The Outlook magazine briefly mentions his off-screen life but not without contrasting it with Amitabh Bachchan, then a fledgling actor who would go on to replace Khanna as the next super star. Gargi Parsai mentioned his desperation to seek media support as a politician. The one account that stands out is perhaps Sunil Sethi’s. This piece is significant because it makes Rajesh Khanna seem human. Without being judgmental, the piece talks about Khanna’s imperfections - in reel and real life – and gives us a small peek of the man and what stardom did to him.

A good tribute is one that stays truthful to the person and does not paint him as a perfect human being. No one is perfect. It is these deviations from perfection that shape personalities and make people memorable. Sadly, the Indian media has chosen to make a saint out of Mr. Khanna, like they often have of numerous other deceased celebrities. What is worse, they have done a tawdry job of it.

Most tributes to Rajesh Khanna have focused on his stardom, while conveniently ignoring his directors and playback singers, without who this feat would have been impossible. There are no nuggets of information on his acting methodology, his working style, his inspirations, or for that matter how he viewed his ascent into cinema – all of which fans would not disapprove of. Not only is this shallow writing, it also creates a perception that Khanna was perhaps as shallow in real life because reporters couldn’t seem to get any meaningful information out of him or his circle of friends. On closer observation, most of the features and reports look more like tributes to the 1970s, while using the superstar’s death as a mere peg.

To bring a dead person alive through a feature is not easy. Deifying them (by seeking ‘good will’ quotes from former colleagues) is not the answer.

(I wrote this piece for the Hoot Blog. You can read it here and share your comments.)

Earful!: Lessons from the Bachchan Baby

There are those try to be celebrities. Others have celebrity-dom thrust on them. And then there is the Bachchan baby (already christened Baby B). This one is for those of you who want to retain the spotlight without appearing cheesy. In other words, the art of telling all without actually saying anything.
1. Go reclusive – A good half year before your event (whatever that might be), stop going anywhere public or private. Avoid parties and get a pal or parent to say how reclusive you have become of late. Gentlemen, do promote that facial hair growth and get a scowl, it adds to the brooding image. Ladies, what can I say? You can pick any of the following options – turning up without makeup, wearing the same dress three times in a row, mimic Kangana Ranaut from Fashion, keep looking at the exit door or your cell phone and look through people. If none of that works, start a conversation about “How you don’t feel like talking these days…” or “How you feel tired all the time…”.

2. Use social media to go asocial – Talk to your family and friends by tweeting once in a day. The most obscure the tweet, the better. Take a cue from Big B’s “Another day of waiting..But yet again.. The lord had his ways…” Considering there are just 140 characters to mess with, start with “What a day! Don’t know where to begin…” As you master this game, you will realize you can keep repeating the same messages in a loop without anyone noticing…(Psst –It might be worthwhile looking through Big B’s tweets for ideas, avoid Shahid Kapoor’s Mausam outburst though)

3. Show, don’t tell – Assuming you have followed points 1 and 2, start making fleeting appearances and don’t speak a word. Let the public put together a morose look and a tweet that says “Feeling tired”. The lesser you show the better. Aishwarya appearing at Manyata Dutt’s Mata ki Chowki for 20 minutes led to the breaking news of her having twins. Or Rani Mukherjee appearing at the Durga Puja pandal in a saree and big red bindi, looking like a resplendent Bengali housewife, leading to rumours of her marriage. Well, what do you care? This kind of sensational stuff will withstand a week of you not tweeting.

4. Get quirky – Ask whoever you meet (hopefully this should be just parents and close pals) to get you weird stuff, like pencils or a night lamp. The fact that you no longer use these items but are now asking for it, will arouse interest. Did Aishwarya Rai not ask for Dhokla and Dahi Vada – all to satiate the hunger of the twin babies?. Didn’t we hear that Aamir Khan had lost his marbles and was sporting a weirdly criminal hairstyle before Ghajini released? What about Imran Khan’s often talked about “wicked humour” on the sets? Quirkiness is the way to go

5. Make the friends talk – We all know how reverently the media looks at celebrities’ “close friends” as news sources. Before D-Day arrives, make sure to start sharing different info with different friends. That way the media will fall over one another to keep breaking news every 30 minutes. Enterprising journalists may actually feed you fodder for further news. Remember the frenzy when 11.11.11 happened? Multiple stories on Baby B were generated – of the twins being born on this date, the BEA issuing guidelines allegedly upon Big B’s request, astrologers talking about Baby B, Seven Hills hospital’s nurses featuring in the news etc etc. If you want a simpler case to understand, how about Anushka Sharma crying hoarse that she was not seeing Ranveer Singh, followed by news of his trying to date Sonakshi Sinha, followed by news of how she was avoiding him? What are friends for if they don’t help you succeed in your objective?

What do you do after all these steps have been followed diligently and met with success? For that, we will have to wait for the first pictures of Baby B.