The Star who saw Stars!

 A fleeting glimpse of an elderly couple desperately trying to peep through the cracked open gates of the infamous Arthur Road prison just minutes after Body guards with packs in multiples of six swooped a celebrity kid (kid? No, not anymore, but will refer to him as that throughout this piece due to his naivety) from the very gate into a swanky shiny Range Rover made me write this piece. Fortunately, that image just caught my eye for a fraction of a second as the byte hungry media vultures were packing up and getting ready for their flight to keep pace with the horsepower of the Turbo Charged Range Rover.

Now, let me make it clear, this is not about taking a stand on the case and analyzing the rights and the wrongs, this is just a rant on the two malaises that haunts the Indian society, the Judicial system and the celebrity sycophancy. The rate at which the celebrities are being pulled up for drugs and other related offences, it makes sense to open an Arthur Road Annex in Bandra or Juhu as that would spare the commoners using the Artur Road and the infamous prison the inconvenience of road blockades etc.

Call it vendetta, targeting, framed, stereo typing etc. I believe in the old adage there is no smoke without fire, pun not intended, as these days you don’t need a smoke to create that ecstatic fire. It’s a fact that he was picked up under suspicious circumstances and was in jail for a good 28 days. Given the power and money involved, had it been a framed event it would have been exposed much earlier. But again, if the framing was as good as Plan B of ‘Casa De Papal’ then I have no arguments nor did the former Attorney General for two full days. I’m not sure I can call it a travesty of justice as the matter is Sub-judice. If it was a mistake to call it that, I hereby render my unconditional apology as I cannot afford the former Attorney General to bail me out. It is here, that my heart goes out for the elderly couple at the gate of the Arthur Road Prison. I just hope and pray whoever they were waiting for and whatever their crime was, he or she was out to celebrate the festive season with them today. Hopefully Justitia’s  (Lady Justice) Blind fold has not gone loose nor have the scales tipped due to the winds of change!

Heart goes out to the father, for whom I have huge respects, as someone who made it on his own in an industry flush with nepotism and familial rights. He was truly an embodiment of the great Indian middle-class common man making it big in the glitzy world of Bollywood. His affluence to get his son temporarily out of legal trouble might not compensate for the pain he might go through at the guilt of having been partly responsible for it to happen.  Sadly, the father fell into the trap like many middle-class parents of his generation, and it was very evident from the interview he gave when his son was hardly 3. He did mention a lot of things in jest, that are being attributed to the situation his son has found himself. However, I will definitely not concur to those nor hold that interview against him, as some are doing today. But will certainly hold him responsible for one statement he made in that interview. ‘He should do everything I have not done!’, this is one statement from a parent that spells doom for many a kid of this generation.

If this case can become a case study on parenting irrespective of, if you are a celebrity or not, the one statement you should refrain from when bringing up your children is “He or she have/should do everything I did not have / have not done”.

The celebrity sycophancy is another malaise that needs to be dealt with in this case. We had Bollywood divided right at the middle on this case. Virtually vociferous statements of support from people appearing ‘close’ to the celebrity, followed by a few journalists and media houses who rode on the closeness to the celebrity went all out. The noise was, as deafening as the silence from the other half which included the erstwhile Kandhans of Bollywood (not to be mistaken with the Khan-dhans of Bollywood who came out in full support) who refrained from making a statement / tweet of support of the celebrity.

I just hope and pray as the kid made his way back home, the name of which meant a Solemn Vow or a Pledge, made a vow / pledge himself sitting on the leather upholstered seats propelled by an 8 Cylinder engine to not to let his offspring have or do what he did not.

While the intention of the statement from a parent might be good, the execution of that will is not in their hands, just as it was not in the hands of the Super star father who saw stars before he saw his soon-to-be star son after an entire Lunar Cycle of 28 days.

A celestial disorder of sorts!