Have you read their script?
|
His reputation as a political pundit was soaring. But did it help AJIT DUARA become `chief gossip writer'?
|
THE other day, a professional actor with three years experience in mythological films came to my office and said "the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asked me to campaign for them". I took it that he was seeking my advice. I am the senior gossip writer in a national film magazine and this actor often consults me before taking any drastic steps in his public or personal life. Just last year, for example, I had advised him against marrying his childhood sweetheart and told him to become a brahmachari. Almost immediately, he got the role of "Ravana" in a big budget film and his sweetheart jumped off the balcony of her ninth floor residence.
"Have you read their manifesto?" I asked him. He gave me a blank look. Clearly, he was foxed. "Their screen-play," I explained in terminology he might understand, "you must read that first before you decide. For all you know, you might prefer the Congress Party screen-play." He said no, he had not read the BJP script, but he knew the star cast. He reeled off the names. Obviously, this actor's intellect was not of the cerebral kind so I decided to help him by giving him a synopsis of the BJP plot. "Feel good," I said.
His eyes lit up. He had been a convert to BJP ideology without even knowing it. Delighted with my advice, he left the office. Later, I heard from my junior gossip writers that he had turned up at the BJP headquarters, complete in his "Ravana" costume, and rattled off the entire dialogue in the mythological he had just acted in. The party chief was so impressed he pitched him headlong, costume and all, into electoral battle. The actor was sent to a remote village in Chattisgarh and during an election speech he looked and spoke so convincingly as "Ravana" that the locals turned on him in rage and chased him and his campaign assistants for a distance of three kilometres before they were finally rescued by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate, who was luckily in the area campaigning for the same seat.
Quickly, my reputation as a political adviser to film stars started growing. Any star wanting to join politics would first consult me. Last week, for example, a very senior artiste who has been doing mother roles for two decades — weeping mothers, abandoned mothers, loving mothers, dying mothers — came to my office. "The Congress (I) has asked me to campaign for them," she said and then paused. I had been successfully advising this actress on her life and career for many years. Almost 15 years ago she had wanted to marry a handsome young actor with not a penny to his name and I told her that it would be a disastrous marriage as the man had no money and no hope of making it as a star. She took my advice. Today that actor is the biggest star in Bollywood. When she expressed her regret to me later, I told her that had she married him he would have abandoned her as soon as he became a star. They all do. She is better off without him, successfully doing mother roles and ageing gracefully, I said.
"The Congress!" she reminded me. "Ah," I said, "Its president is the mother of the party. You might be facing some competition." She explained that that would not be the case as she only played Indian mothers. I wanted to tell her that if she was being so catty about it, she might as well forget joining the Congress (I) and look instead to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) or the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
But what I actually ended up saying was, "If Madam has asked you to campaign, it is a great honour. This is the party of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri." Later on, I heard from my junior gossip writers that the actress had turned up at the Congress headquarters in a spotless white sari and wept copiously when introduced to the party chief. She was sent immediately to the interior districts where her speeches affected the voters, particularly the women, so badly that they constantly broke down and wept at the slightest pretext. But there was a bright side to this. When the BJP arrived the next day with its well defined campaign, their candidate was shocked to find that the moment he said "feel good" everyone burst into tears.
Meanwhile my reputation as a political pundit continued to grow by leaps and bounds. One day, the finest comedian in the country paid me a visit. He said he was a patriot and wanted to contribute to the strength of the country by campaigning for a worthy party. I thought for a while about all the worthy parties in our country and finally recommended the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar. The comedian took the first flight to Patna.
Unfortunately, during all his years of playing comic roles in Hindi movies, this fine actor had unconsciously taken on the lilt, intonation and flair of our most charismatic politician. But he was not consciously aware of this subtle influence on his acting style. So during an audience granted him by the CM in Patna, he did his usual comic routine. The CM naturally thought he was mocking her husband, flew into a rage and sent him with a posse of armed guards to Patna airport to help him catch the flight back to Mumbai.
By this time I was writing articles for my magazine on the high drama of advising the stars on political expediency. I was the most talked about gossip writer on a magazine. A national daily in the mainstream press invited me to write a guest column. I was getting famous. My editor started getting uncomfortable.
Then a Hindi movie villain came to my office. He said that he was tired of being typecast in films and wanted to contribute something substantial to society. Which political party would it be suitable for him to campaign for? I thought for a long while and finally suggested that he select an "independent" candidate who would not mind a villain making speeches on his behalf.
But this actor was a bit naive and selected a candidate with the most extensive criminal record in all of Uttar Pradesh. At first the candidate thought that the villain was his bodyguard, and wanted to know where his gun was. When the villain explained that he had come from Bollywood to campaign for him and not to protect him, the candidate kept calling him "Kaaliya" and "Samba" and reciting verbatim from Gabbar Singh's lines in "Sholay".
Finally, at the fag end of the campaign, when the independent candidate realised he was not going to win, he shot his campaign manager, then took a pot shot at the villian who somehow managed to dodge the bullet (his experiences with some of the trigger happy underworld financiers of Hindi movies held him in good stead). Later, when this villain came back to Bollywood he was a changed man and the bite had gone from his villainy.
Meanwhile, my editor was furious. He summoned me to a meeting with the Publisher and held forth on how I had destroyed the career of prominent actors by my absurd political advice to them. He said I was a menace to this trend of film stars campaigning for political parties.
In response, I simply asked the editor to summon the circulation manager of our magazine. This gentleman walked in and read out the latest statistics. He told us that ever since I started writing about how I advised film stars wanting to join politics, the circulation of our magazine had increased by 30 per cent.
Today, we were second only to Stardust.
At the mention of these figures, there was a strange glint in the Publisher's eyes. The next morning I received a letter from him promoting me to the post of Chief gossip writer of our esteemed publication.
AJIT DUARA
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
