First, there
was his presence in the launch of the second phase of the Bandra
Worli Sea Link, which caused some heartburn within the ranks of
the ruling Congress. Equally irksome to them was his perceived
transgressions in agreeing to become the brand ambassador for
the state of Gujarat, where the attacks against Muslims had
taken place in 2002. Kerala also wanted him on board as a brand
ambassador but the offer was rescinded quickly enough — again
another news story.
Then there was the coverage of his wife
Jaya Bachchan’s support of her husband’s stand in a presser
she held in Delhi. The strange thing is celebrities are in the
news these days not because of their talent, which is
considerable, but for their public missteps and brushes with
controversies, or perhaps the trajectory of their love life (aka
Sania Mirza’s potential engagement to Shoaib Malik).
Television news ably makes the most of these occasions.
Months
before megapic My Name is Khan was going to be released,
Shah Rukh Khan was splashed all over the news merely because he
had been stopped and questioned at length at Newark airport. It
was, suggested the actor subsequently in exclusive chats with
news anchors from assorted channels, because his name was Khan.
Little later, in the run-up to the IPL, he took on Mumbai’s
Shiv Sena by refusing to apologise for his remarks on backing
Pakistani players.
In his recent interview with CNN’s Chris
Anderson on Talk Asia, Bachchan made it clear that being
a megastar carried with it certain responsibilities. "I
feel if you are in public life, if you are a celebrity, there
are certain compulsions on how you behave and how you conduct
yourself in public, what you say and what you do. I feel a sense
of responsibility towards that," he told Anderson. In the
same way, when lifestyle channel Travel and Livings started
airing the series Living with a Superstar, featuring SRK,
up close and personal, giving us allegedly candid shots about
his life, it really was all about image control.
All these
glossy images feed into the endless curiosity that the public
seems to have about stars. Today the public can look at stars
— up, down and sideways — 24x7. But it comes at a price. The
real issues seem to be getting, at worst, pushed aside, and at
best given the same importance as celebrityhood. Times Now has
kicked off a potentially interesting documentary series called Hidden
Truth.
The first instalment focussed on the famous Samba
spy scandal. Those born before 1980 will know the issue involved
the accusation of some members of the 168 Infantry Brigade which
had been stationed in Samba (J&K) of spying for Pakistan The
charges were dropped by the Delhi High court but the Army did
not drop the charges and the case comes up for hearing again
this May.
The channel has tracked down two of the main
accused, Major AK Rana and Captain Rathore, and interviewed
them. But perhaps adding more context and background to the
story would be an added asset for those who don’t remember how
huge this story had become when it first broke out 30 years ago.
