BY SUHAANI RAI
I would be lying if I say I am not obsessed with the “Bollywood life” if I say I don’t see the pap photos if I don’t follow Filmfare or Pinkvilla. I might not know who won the Oscars or who is the 7th PM of our country, but I do know what’s going in this particular world of glamour. It’s safe to say that it’s not just me, there are millions of people sitting at their homes with a microscopic eye in this world.
Let me tell you why. In India, films are considered to be a medium of escape, the one part where they can just leave their troubles behind, sit back and enjoy. But most importantly, it’s the one thing a commoner or a person not in the films can judge Bollywood in any possible way. And judging people is India’s favourite past time (oops ‘some people’).
The real question is “does it give you the liberty to judge them on the basis of what goes on in their personal lives?” Bollywood gives you full freedom to judge them on the basis of what they do on the multiplexes. Let me put it in a better way: in an office, an employee is judged on the basis of what he brings to the company. The boss has full freedom to do so with no filters because it’s his company. What the boss cannot do is judge the employee based on his partying throughout the weekend (if it doesn’t affect his work).
Similarly, you have full freedom to judge an actor by his work because it’s your money which goes into getting the best seats, popcorn and 3 hours of your time. But it doesn’t give you the freedom to judge a person’s work saying, “arey iska party pics aaya tha, movie bakwaas hai isliye” (koi sense hai iss baat mein?)
In today’s world, we judge these actors based on everything except what they bring to the films. And what is our reason? “because they are in this field where they are bound to be judged, they chose this career.” Um no, they didn’t choose to be followed around in cars, have no second of privacy even to meet their friends, they didn’t choose to be a meme for the slightest possible mistake and the biggest reason: they didn’t choose to be born in a particular family.
But you can choose to be a good and kind person and just judge them on the basis of their work and treat them like a normal person who after 5 days of work, likes to hang out at Bastian with their friends or be at a party. In today’s time, if you want to be anything, BE KIND.
