Dhen tedan! The B-town insider, our Gossip Girl is back with her new quota of B-town goss. Have fun! But first, why she enjoys writing it. Aha. And a deadly last line. You go girl.
How many people truly “know” their icons? How many have the opportunity delve into their personal lives and actually witness the person behind a carefully constructed image?
It’s a true testimony to our times that we never really know the “product” and consider the “brand” to be a reality.
So lets not be fooled by the superfluous personas of these so called “stars”. They’re very much human, armed with real personalities and real “kinks”. They eat/sleep/defecate/reproduce just like all of us, so lets try not to buy into the illusion because their make believe world goes beyond the movies they star in.
What we read about our icons, political or film celebrities is filtered through elaborate mechanisms of PR and marketing genius but all we know is that we’re fascinated enough with these people to pour over every written word about them, ONLY because they nominated themselves for this position in society – we tear them apart, support them, laugh with them, cry for them. They live in our minds, hearts and bedrooms, but I find it unfair that its never the other way round.
Which is why I piece together this column – most of them eye witness accounts by the peoples that spend night and day working to maintain the polish that these stars claim as their own hard work. Even though the majority of the hard work is the boy who holds the stars umbrella in sweltering heat, catering to him/her freshly cooked nutritious food, the person plucking their eyebrows and waxing their legs at a moments notice, the people who spend their morning and nights and a chunk of their lives trying to organize things just so that some XYZ celebrity doesn’t get pissed off and walk off set and stall production for some of nonsensical demand that has nothing to do with cinema at all. So you get the idea, and not to further divert from the job at hand, here goes a couple of stories that have bounced on this girl’s big ears recently.
A shy star son, known to shield himself from the media because of immense insecurities about his receding hairline is rumored to have been spotted at the notorious red light district of Mumbai. It is said that he arrived in a luxury car and pulled up in one of the many different lanes in this locality in the middle of one night.
The lane that he pulled up in exclusively catered to peoples with tastes for the transgendered variety of sex workers. And aptly titled “G**** bageecha”. One of the workers there who divulged this piece information stated that after picking up someone of his choice and inviting him/her into the car, he pointed a (gun?) to the prostitute’s head and then got his demands fulfilled. The details of the demands were also shared with me but I guess its best not to go there.
The actor remains aloof to the media only appearing for promotional purposes, for the one off odd films that he signs. With a dwindling career, a dwindling hairline and supposedly dwindling finances – he remains single. He is supposed to have a brother who is also rumored to swing both ways, however nothing has been confirmed or denied by the actors in question though a lot has been speculated about their sexuality over the years.
A strange turn out considering the father of these boys – a shining star of the yesteryear was rumoured to be a complete play boy- has been married twice, has a bunch of kids, and gave it all up to become a sadhu. He hastily exited grihastya ashram for Sanyas in his mid fiftees and joined a popular spiritual movement, which by any standards is just another corporation scamming white people and spiritual enthusiasts with money for donations.
I guess a sense of confusion seems to run in the family.
Another case that came to light about a star wandering in the shanties of Mumbai was about this southern sensation, an actor that hit Bollywood a few years ago in an extremely popular semi-patriotic multi-starrer. And even though he has appeared in only a couple of Bollywood projects since, he seems to carry his southern stardom and a chip on his shoulder wherever he goes. The actor is already popular for his temper tantrums, anyone who wants to get in touch with him is advised not to call him post 8pm – the time when he is busy polishing off bottles of booze, usually paid for by production.
Recently on the sets of another multi starrer the actor is supposed to be playing a pivotal role in, the actor demanded exclusivity on every thing, even though the rest of the star cast (with reasonably big names) was being treated democratically. The producers were fed up of his unreasonable demands and constant complaints but kept up face as the director was completely convinced about him for that particular role.
First he refused to attend rehearsal with the full cast because he didn’t want to face one of his ex-girlfriends, a blue blooded actress, who is known to have dumped him after a tumultuous tryst with his huge ego, flaring anger and a love for the bottle.
So he is said to have blackmailed the director into rescheduling the entire programme, much to the dislike of another southern actress – a part of the cast, who is supposed to have been dumped by him after some ungentlemanly behavior on the actors part.
The southy actress wanted to behave professionally and got on with the show without complaint but the actor misunderstood this gesture as an act of submission and is said to have constantly taken digs at the southy actress.
So after making production run around for his special demands on an already difficult film set, the actor is supposed to have refused to show up for his dubbing sessions once the film hit post production. Apparently unhappy about the fact that he was not booked into a hotel of his liking ( a 5 star) even though he was flown into Bombay only for a couple of hours of work. So after springing demand after expensive demand, making the production run helter skelter, changing his air tickets and extending his stay, even though his work was finished, the drunk actor demanded a car for himself in the middle of the night. And though production was not obliged to do anything anymore, they did it for the sake of peace and good relations. He, then, is supposed to have instructed his half asleep driver to go to a small and filthy slum with zig-zag lanes, and disappeared there for a few hours whilst his driver waited. It is not clear what the actor was doing in a down trodden area in the middle of the night but according to reports he came back as intoxicated as he had left and caught his flight the next morning by a cats whisker. The production house has sworn to not to ever cast him again.
It is a pity that this actor is gaining such a reputation, as he has a genuine spark of talent that could be explored only if he allowed himself to behave. But then again, any measure of popularity comes with its own baggage, and often people in the spotlight have to go beyond themselves to feel normal and anonymous – just like this writer.
Courtesy MoifightClub
Tags: Aao Guess Karein Akshaye Khanna Gossip Rahul Khanna Siddharth Soha Ali Khan Vinod Khanna
