"The Obsessive Possessive celebrity love in India"

As published by Gingerchai.com

Few days back I was having a fun conversation on facebook which was not just for fun. It was  a discussion where every girl fantasized each word in the chat thread to become true. One said, “I love SRK” and celebrated his birthday. Two other married girls fought for him tagging others as “the other ladies”. SRK love was oozing from each and every word they were typing so was it getting exuded from each and every letter I typed. Recently I read somewhere that when you meet SRK’s honey eyed gaze and dimpled smile there’s no way out from the warm charm! Neha Dhupia says, “Sex and SRK sell in India”

There’s no need to be flabbergasted if Fair and Handsome sales shoot up as SRK acted in it. People may buy Navratan oil as Amitab ji is in the ad. May be certain men and women from cities and suburbs might think and decide as to what to buy as obviously SRK will neither use Lux nor Fair and handsome cream but the product takes the cake in most of the areas in UP , Bihar , Haryana where you come across many obsessed with anything a celebrity does.  Sometimes even the metros and cosmos are not exceptions!

Image courtesy: Outlook.com

Similarly in Tamilnadu where Rajnikant is worshipped, people pray for the “Thalaivar” if he falls sick and they are ready to teach some culprit a lesson if he talks against the super star.

We all know that we can never mess with three things in India, 1.) Religion 2.) Cricket 3.) Cinema.

There are instances where X and Y have stopped talking to each other as X cannot tolerate a word against Chirenjeevi (Tollywood actor) and Y can’t resist the actor and his party and continues the mudslinging. Hence they did not settle their differences but settled in their differences. We Indians may or may not know who the Home minister is but we definitely track which movies are getting released on Friday, which heroine has the highest pay and who is not in good terms with who. Page 3 is the most read page in the newspapers. Hence when the youngsters were asked what UPA stands for by a certain newspaper, nobody was able to answer but we all remember who Aradhya is. If you really don’t know who she is, you are the odd man out who is not much interested in celebrities. AradhyaBachan is under lime light from the day she started growing in her mother’s womb.

Yes, we are a celebrity obsessed nation. There are even people who chose favourite actor if he is from his caste. I once saw a colleague’s unabashed support to a Tollywood hero who acts with 3 heroines in each utter flop movie who are less than half his age. The reason behind his unfathomable support is the same caste they share and he even voted for that hero’s father. “Ridiculous” is the word which came to my mind that second. Religion, movies, politics and cricket seamlessly blend with each other. You never know who jumps from what to what in India. A person might be of a certain religion one day and after becoming a musician he may adapt some other religion for his own convenience but even this will be questioned by the fans! The way there is no boundary line between IPL and bollywood, Virat Kohli and advertisements, Rajnikanth and Japan, SRK and overseas there are no boundaries to our endless love towards our stars.

We get amused by seeing Sachin’s century and feel depressed if he resigns. We watch SRK’s outburst in Wankhede stadium for days and also read his article on outlook and vehemently criticise. We religiously read about Aishwarya’s weight gain or Salman’s court summon! We may even ignore the accidents done by super stars but remember to twist their words and combine them in such a way that it sounds objectionable. We ban artists and movies even when a single person gets hurt. Our obsession crosses boundaries too and we equally are obsessed by International sports, Hollywood, English music bands or the sitcom celebrities. If one person has Barney Stinson’s cover photos and follows his words like Bible, the other wants to get David Beckham’s new hair style.
This doesn’t mean we are not serious about the burning problems of the country like corruption, rapes and flawed laws. We do fight for them but irony is we fight for our favourite celebrity in the similar tone and rage! The obsession is harmless till it is in limits but when it reaches the level of verbal abuses and holding collars and shedding blood; the only outcome is the star becoming more famous after that.

We study the stars and guess the future but we are possessive and more obsessive about our favourite stars and their future!

Guest article by Afshan

Originally at    "Gingerchai.com"