The Brazenness of Bollywood
On 8 January, seven chartered flights touched down on Saifai's airstrip in western Uttar Pradesh. Aboard each of them was the crme de la crme of Bollywood. When Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Zarine Khan, Hard Kaur and a number of other stars stepped out, awaiting them on the tarmac was a reception party headed by the gleeful nephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav. That night, one by one, each star took the stage and performed at the finale of the Saifai Mahotsav, an entertainment extravaganza organised by the state's ruling Samajwadi Party. The performers were cheered on by a crowd estimated at over 100,000, among them Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav, apart from Mulayam Singh Yadav and other SP bigshots.
According to media reports, the entire 14-day festival cost at least Rs 20 crore, although the Chief Minister has denied that figure. Apart from whatever fees the celebrities were paid for their performances, Madhuri Dixit's just-released film Dedh Ishqiya also got a grant of 25 per cent of the film's total cost as part of the largesse, a figure placed at Rs 1 crore.
In Muzaffarnagar district just 300 odd kilometres away, meanwhile, one of the biggest tragedies in the state's recent history continued to unfold. In relief camps for victims of the recent riots, as various news reports have been saying for weeks, children were dying of cold and people were being forced out.
Akhilesh Yadav and his party members have been pilloried for holding a festival under such grim circumstances, but the Bollywood contingent got away lightly. And what followed was typical Bollywood PR overdrive. Salman Khan, somewhat like a medieval king doling out money for his excesses, announced that he would fund 200 paediatric heart surgeries in UP and 100 in Maharashtra. He also said he had contributed Rs 25 lakh to a hospital in Aligarh. Madhuri Dixit, in between a barrage of tweets promoting her two new movies, also sent out a tweet saying, As artists and celebrities, we believe in using our reach to help others through drawing attention to the needs of the day.'
Since then, there have been a number of flattering write-ups on Salman Khan in assorted newspapers. On three successive days, 11, 12 and 13 January,Bombay Times had a story about Salman Khan on its front page. One of these centered round how he spends 90 per cent of his earnings on charity, a claim supported by a solitary quote from his sister, Alvira Khan. According to aHindustan Times report, the actor will be producing a film whose profits will be devoted entirely to charity. Khan, who rarely grants interviews, has also sat down for several of them in the past few days, though perhaps to promote his upcoming film Jai Ho as much as to shore up goodwill. In a Hindustan Times interview, when asked for his opinion on the flak he got for his Mahotsav performance, he said, "...we take that trouble [of performing]. They take back the pleasure of seeing their idol and hero who they will never get to see."
No one expected any contrition on Akhilesh's part for the festival, but the film stars could have done better than issue exhaustive lists of what they consider their do-gooder efforts.
Among the youngest of the Saifai performers was Alia Bhatt. A few days after her return home, one of the few people willing to speak about her presence at the event is her filmmaker father, Mahesh Bhatt. "I think I have failed as a father," he says, in a muffled tone, "I should have stopped her from going. As someone who likes to believe I have an outward gaze, I should have been able to tell my daughter not to go."
Mahesh Bhatt is known as one of the few Bollywood creatures who are willing to speak up on issues unrelated to their films. According to him, he has asked his daughter to exercise greater care in her choices from now on. "I don't interfere in my children's lives," he says, "And Alia is a smart young woman. She knew what had happened at Muzaffarnagar. She wasn't aware of its current severity." This claim of awareness, of course, is questionable. Just a few months ago, when Karan Johar asked her on the TV show Koffee With Karan who the President of India was, she replied "Prithviraj Chavan."
Mahesh Bhatt claims the reason that Bollywood becomes party to such an incident is not that the industry's individuals don't care. "God only knows how much many stars silently contribute to society through charities," he says. "They tend to be inward-looking and insulated from the real world. The industry often does not permit them to look at anything beyond themselves. But don't accuse them of not caring."
Dale Bhagwagar, a film publicist who has in his career of over 15 years worked with top stars like Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra and Shilpa Shetty, tries to throw light on the inner workings of stars. "They are mostly all clueless, really," he says, "Each star can only function with a coterie of people around him/her, a team telling them everything that s/he must do"from the image to portray to the party to be seen at. They cannot decide anything for themselves." By way of example, he offers the case of Vivek Oberoi's press conference where the actor accused Salman Khan of threatening him: "Vivek's instinct was to talk about it. And his then publicist encouraged it. That was insane, suicidal really. His career took a beating." Bhagwagar was appointed Oberoi's image manager after that incident.
One of Bhagwagar's current clients, Evelyn Sharma, a little-known German-Indian actress and model, was also part of the Saifai Mahotsav. She went on stage a few days before the Bollywood heavyweights did. According to Bhagwagar, Sharma had no idea of the riots since she has been in India for only about two years. "An agency got in touch with Evelyn for the show," he says, "The money was good and she readily agreed."
Once Bhagwagar learnt that some leaders were speaking against the Mahotsav, he swung to her defence. He drafted a press release stating Sharma was disturbed by the controversy around her performance. Today, Bhagwagar appears disappointed that the performance of the other stars got more airtime than his client's. "Remember," he says, "I was the first one to get [the news] out."
Posted by Priyanka
Source: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/the-brazenness-of-bollywood
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