Celebrityhood is not a one-way street
Unless you have been living under a rock, you must be well aware of N.R. Narayana Murthy’s views on Kareena Kapoor, thanks to a video clip from 2019 that is doing the rounds of late. In it he is mildly chiding Kareena Kapoor for not responding to her fans who were saying ‘hello’ to her.
Personally, I feel NRN could have just stopped after making his point of basic etiquette of responding when someone speaks to you. But he lost me when he humble-bragged. What could have been a fatherly suggestion suddenly became a sermon on how a celebrity should behave. In that moment NRN imposed celebrity-hood onto himself. Which felt strange coming from a self-professed shunner of self-promotion who believes in ‘actions speak louder than words’. Anyway … that’s not the point of this post. The point is that this video clip got me thinking on celebrity behaviour, as expected by their admirers or fans.
Ask anyone about their experience of meeting a celebrity and invariably the responses will be in the okey-dokey range. And that is largely because these interactions (if they can be called that) are pretty one sided. It is you who are the interested party. It is you who want to bask in their reflected glory. And it is you who is imposing yourself in their space, their time and their distributed attention. In the frenzy that generally surrounds such interactions you spend no more than a few seconds in the celebrity’s company. It is, therefore, quite silly of someone to ask you how your experience with so-and-so celebrity has been.
Most of the celebrities appear quite jaded with the constant barrage of requests that come their way from anyone and everyone. Watch any promotional event around a film or any event and you will see their totally unenthusiastic participation in the exercise, especially if it is to promote some brand partners who have part funded the production. Most of them just go through the motions, lest they get sued over contractual obligations not being fulfilled.
Some celebs however make every interaction – however short or even fleeting it might be - completely worth it for their fans. Now here is a clip that will throw you completely off.
It’s just such a sweet, completely natural, authentic interaction between a huge celeb like Stormzy and his fan. I know he is huge because I have to be ‘with it’ with the only Gen-Z member in our family … and because of that I also know that there is a genre of music called grime, not to be mistaken with Grimes, also a singer, who happens to be Mr. Musk’s ex- and who was an equal contributor in permanently destroying their progeny’s future by christening him XÆA-12!
But I digress …
There are some masters of the fame game, though there are very few of them from what one hears. Below are some of those who I know of – some based on personal experience, some anecdotal and some which have been recorded.
Ustad Zakir Hussain, the tabla maestro, is one such master. I will narrate two incidences – one personal and one anecdotal.
Many years ago when I was a student at St. Xavier’s I was assigned volunteering duties of the green room for the college’s annual Indian classical music fest called JanFest. Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (R.I.P.) and Ustad Zakir Hussain had just wrapped up a mesmerising performance. One had got to hear that they were in a rush as they had to go to Pune for the 60th birthday celebrations of Pandit Jasraj. But both of them being the coolest rockstars of Indian classical music (oh, you should have seen the catfight amongst the girl volunteers to be chosen to offer the bouquets and shawls prior to the performance!) were promptly mobbed in the green room. Those were the pre-mobile days and so armed with a point-and-shoot camera and an autograph book I approached Ustad Zakir Hussain first. He was sweet and promptly obliged. I was then pushed out by loads of other fans who wanted to get their moment with the star. I turned around and approached Pandit Shivkumar Sharma at the other end of the room, where he was already saying his bye-byes. He waved me off saying ‘aaj nahi … thoda jaldi mein hoon’. (The gentleman that he was, he actually gave his reason for waving me off.) I was kind of crushed, and was about to turn around when I heard a voice pipe up from behind me saying, ‘amaa … yaar hain hamare … ek auto aur ek photo hi toh maang rahey hain … de do!’ Hearing this, Pandit Sharma graciously agreed and I had what I wanted.
The anecdotal story about Ustad Zakir Hussain, though, gives me goosebumps every time I narrate it. The names, the places and the timeline are placeholders, but the events are factual.
So there was this young girl named Priya and her brother named Rajeev residing in Toronto, who were fortunate to meet up with the Ustad post a performance. While signing the girl’s autograph book, the Ustad did small talk with the girl like what’s your name, how old are you, what are your plans, do you have a sibling, what does he do, etc etc.
Cut to some 15 years later.
The girl is now a grown-up. She happens to be in Mumbai for a concert of the Ustad. And she, once again, also happens to get access to the green room post the performance. She approaches the Ustad and says that many years ago she had attended a concert of his in Toronto. And the Ustad promptly says, ‘Of course Priya, I remember you. How’s Rajeev doing? Isn’t he here? You were planning on becoming a doctor then. Are you one now? …’
It made my head spin when I first heard it. I can’t even begin to imagine how special that girl must have felt in that moment. Being remembered by a personality as huge as the Ustad, who has met thousands of people over a span of 15 years and yet just rewound back to that brief interaction with a little girl who he met at the other end of the world, and then enquired about all the things that she had mentioned then, as if they have been in touch all along!
In the anecdotal story, what can one say but the fact that the Ustad has a God given gift. But in my case, he had no need to keep an eye on me from amongst the hordes who had surrounded him after I left. And to sense how crushed I must have felt when Pandit Sharma refused. And then to shout across the room and instruct him to oblige. But he did. And almost 33 years later I still remember this incident vividly.
Or take the example of Shah Rukh Khan. The incidence is about this friend of mine who is a doctor, and who had successfully operated on one of SRK’s close friends and brought him back from the brink. He told my doc friend that he had no idea what a big thing he had done by saving his very special friend and if there is anything he (SRK) can do to express his gratitude. My friend mentioned that his daughter is huge fan and if he could get her to meet him. Sure enough they met on the sets of some movie and SRK took them along to his vanity van to chat up. Once inside, he told my friend to stay back and then proceeded to chat up with his daughter in a one-on-one – his point being that it was the girl who wanted to spend time with her favourite actor and it was his duty to make sure that she got what she came for. So apparently he chatted with her for a good 10-15 minutes … and for those 10-15 minutes he became a 10-12 year old and connected with her at that level. No way is the girl going to ever forget those 10-15 minutes … ever! (A brief aside – I had managed to get a photo-op with SRK for our daughter post a shoot. It must have lasted all of 20 seconds. But in those 20 seconds he managed to strike a connect with her by just saying ‘Thank you so much, sweetheart!’ It should have actually been our daughter saying thank you to him, but he managed to make those moments permanently memorable by thanking her!)
Harry Styles, of One Direction fame, seems to have made a habit of making his fans feel extra special! Do watch the video below … you will be stunned.
And one last example, which if I don’t include, will lead to a lot of tension at home. Our daughter had scored passes to a private promotional event where Ranveer Singh was performing. She could have very well been his biggest fan at that event. She says it was always destined that she be his biggest fan … why else would providence step in to have both of them share the same date of birth, she asks? Anyway … back to the event. It was a frenzy she says - not only were the fans not getting enough of him, but so also was Mr. Energizer Singh equally charged up and was whipping up a riot by belting out numbers from his then recent hit Gully Boy. What our daughter recollects of that evening is that from among all the ‘I love you’s’ being thrown at him all the time, he managed to catch that one ‘I love you’ from my daughter and then responded with ‘I love you too!’ with the briefest of pauses and a glance to ensure that she knows it’s meant for her. For my daughter, it has been a moment she won’t forget. (She refuses to share the video clip, though. She’s too embarrassed to share it, though she wasn’t embarrassed while screaming her lungs out while professing her love for the star!)
So what is it about some celebs that they create memorable moments for their fans, while others just come across as going through the motions?
I think it’s the small things they do that make everyone feel special … through a glance, a hug, an arm around their shoulder or a small comment they make while maintaining eye contact – something that not every celebrity does. They have a keen sense of observation to spot the truly crazy ones among their fan base and then connect with them to make them feel special. Not everyone gets an opportunity to get a one-on-one, but they know that a small gesture, a small nod, a small acknowledgement from them is more than enough for the fan to go into raptures, thus reinforcing their fandom.
Celebrities, this side of the world, are given demi-God (if not God) status. They are put on a pedestal. They are seen as hope. They can do no wrong. They are given a lot of latitude. But their public persona is what is expected of them in their personal and private lives. A better part of my professional life has been spent spending time on the fringes of ‘celebritosphere’, thanks to ad film shoots with celebrity endorsers. And I have come to realise that these people live in their own bubble, mostly. They lead extremely protected lives. With successive instances of stratospheric success, the bubble only grows in size. While their fan base gets bigger and bigger, the circle of people they are genuinely close with starts becoming smaller and smaller. They are ‘spared’ the reality of everyday life. Their touch with reality erodes bit by bit. It leads them to start believing their own myth. And the very fame they hankered after starts to feel like an albatross round their neck.
Is it right, then, on our part to pass judgment on why and how they behave in public life? I don’t think so. And though being a celebrity means being the public eye, it is not a tall ask from them to be given their space, occasionally. As public, we don’t know what their state of mind is at that particular moment when they don’t live up to your expectations of them. They might be having a bad day. They might have received some bad news. They might just want to be left alone. Or simply the fact that they might actually be extremely private persons leading extremely public lives. Just because their job demands them to project a certain persona doesn’t mean that is who they are.
Thanks to the mobile phone, the relationship between the celebrity and the fan too has changed. In earlier times, the autograph book ensured that there was a request that was being made, a permission was being sought. It was impossible to click selfies with point-and-shoot cameras. So a distance was maintained even when pictures were being clicked. The phone, on the other hand, has become a weapon that makes the public feel that they own the celebrity. It is an intrusive tool that makes the owner think they can do anything. So if the celeb has denied them selfie time, it is still possible to grab a pic. Some of these things happen even when the celeb is among friends having a meal, or is shopping, or is just chatting up with someone. The mobile has, in fact, destroyed the beautiful celeb-fan relationship that was.
The mobile has also brought about another change. It has caused a role reversal of sorts by blurring the lines between fans and paparazzis. Now fans behave like paparazzis and paparazzis tend to keep a respectful distance. More than being true fans, it is now about celeb spotting. Thus, everyone now professes to be a fan, even when they are not. And because they come with the feeling that they own the celeb because they own a phone, they don’t know, or probably don’t care about, the unwritten rules of fandom. That true fans are those who actually give space to their idols, not invade it. That true fans respect the celeb’s request when they are told not to intrude. But because these simple rules are no longer followed, there are times when the celeb doesn’t comply requests for pictures. Or brushes aside intruders in their space. Or just gives them the cold shoulder. Simply because it is becoming increasingly difficult for the celebs to separate the wheat from the chaff.
We just need to keep in mind that not all celebs are cut from the same cloth. That their public image is not their private persona. That not all of them can wear celebrityhood lightly. And that adulation doesn’t mean that they will always enjoy your intrusions. It’s as simple as that. For you, it might be your one and only moment for life. For them it could be their one hundredth moment of that day. And believe you me it is not necessarily enjoyable what they are subjected to.
Coming back to NRN’s comment on Kareena’s behaviour. Maybe her day hadn’t exactly unfolded the way she had thought it would. Maybe there were some tensions or stresses that had her mind occupied. Or maybe she just didn’t want to interact with anyone. Sure, her behaviour may have been odd that day – but fact also remains that if there is anyone who has revelled in the presence of the paparazzi, it is Kareena along with her son Taimur. Maybe NRN could have cut her some slack instead of becoming judgmental. Maybe he had reasons to be in an expansive mood that day and was spending that minute with whoever wanted to chat with him. Maybe he too must be feeling grumpy and grouchy on occasion, and then must not be so receptive to strangers approaching him. Not only that, the kind of fans he has are very different to the kind of fans Kareena has. So his interactions with his fans, and their expectations from him are of a different kind, than what Kareena’s fans have from her. But being a public figure, I am sure he would also appreciate that celebrityhood is not always a one-way street where the celeb merely complies with the demands that are placed on their time, presence and attention. In this very public world, I think it is perfectly okay for a very public person wanting a moment of privacy, of wanting to be alone among people. And by giving them that, it would then be the fan’s way of giving affection, instead of just expecting it as their right.
Be braver. Be kinder.
In line with the topic of this post, Keep Watching this time is about a series that captures the life of a celebrity - the highs, the lows, the fans, the appearance they have to keep up, the secrets they have to keep, the relationships they have to hide, their utter lack of privacy, their total lack of trust of people … where every move of theirs is subject to scrutiny. And through all of this how they have to live up to the image of themselves that they have carefully built and nurtured.
A stand-up comedian who’s also a superhero movie megastar (Kevin Hart) becomes a trouble magnet when he is back in his hometown for a tour of his latest act. First a debt-laden brother (Wesley Snipes), then an escort who OD’s in his room, and then a murder he commits to avoid being extorted by the man his brother calls to clean up the escort’s body - all of these happen in the first episode itself. Things get murkier by the episode and the star, his inner circle people, a die hard fan, and many others get affected by a domino effect of the happenings in the first episode. There’s enough tension to keep us engaged all through the seven episodes. Hart as the troubled megastar and Snipes as his troublesome brother excel.
True Story | Limited Series | Netflix
So glad u wrote this piece…super 👍. I for one did not like NRN’s stand & comment…inappropriate & unnecessary. Great writing👍
Great piece baba!