Back in my journalism college days, I chanced upon a delightful op-ed by Praxy Fernandez. I faintly recall it running in Deccan Herald, because in our library, national and regional papers rubbed shoulders with international titles. [Arab News from Saudi Arabia was printed on light-green tinted paper, while ads in Saudi Gazette were printed on salmon colour pages.] But what I remember vividly is the Mae West zinger Praxy quoted: ‘Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?’ Saucy, suggestive, sheer wordplay wizardry. That was Mae – Hollywood beauty with brains and bullets of wit.
Outsourced brains
Cut to our own Bollywood, and you begin to wonder – was Mae West too much to ask for? We have beauty in abundance, but we have outsourced brains to the writers. The line between charisma and cluelessness is often blurred. – usually by the high beams of the camera flash and the blinding dazzle of self-confidence.
Alia’s oops moment
Let us begin with the patron saint of ‘Oops’, Alia Bhatt. The early interviews of this now-national-award-winning actress were pure accidental comedy. When asked who the President of India is, she replied, ‘Prithviraj Chauhan’. One could almost hear Dr Abdul Kalam’s hair standing on end.
Social media erupted. TV panelists, deprived of breaking-news fodder, turned prime time into ‘Alia Analysis Hour’. Memes flooded the internet like a monsoon-marooned Hyderabad subway. One read: ‘Alia Bhatt files RTI to find out who’s who’.
She was, at the time, Bollywood’s Rahul Gandhi – well-intentioned, photogenic, baffled. Credit where it’s due: unlike Rahul, she has matured. She went from ‘national joke’ to National Award, proving evolution isn’t just Darwinian – it is also driven by PR teams and dialogue coaches.
Katrina on Indian independence
But Alia is not alone in our safari of slip-ups. Katrina Kaif, asked about Indian independence, said, ‘It’s nice that we got freedom, but I wasn’t born then, so I can’t really comment’. One half expected her to add, ‘But I did act in Fitoor, which was also a struggle for freedom from logic’.
Then there was Bipasha Basu’s ‘throwback’ Eiffel Tower selfie… with the tower quite visibly photoshopped in. Paris! Texas, maybe?
Bhai Jaan’s unfortunate simile
And lest the men feel left out, our bhai jaan Salman Khan once compared his pain on the Sultan set to ‘feeling like a raped woman’. Even Bollywood PR collectively face-palmed – and wondered if it wasn’t too late to go back to selling mosquito repellent.
But not all is despair in Dreamland. Occasionally, someone shows both mascara and mental acuity. Konkona Sen Sharma is eloquence personified. Taapsee Pannu can debate off the cuff. And Radhika Apte speaks six languages – Marathi, English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu – and has dabbled in Malayalam and French for roles.
Until then, meme on
Still, the blooper brigade reigns supreme. We love them for it. After all, where would India’s meme economy be without weekly celebrity content? Perhaps one day a Bollywood star will match Mae West’s charm, cheek, and cleverness. Until then, we’ll settle for someone who at least knows the current President’s name. (And no, it’s not Rani Lakshmibai.)
