Glam & Glory: Spoilt star kids? 
By Subhash K. Jha, November 20, 2006 - 06:48 IST
Say hi to the P & P generation. The first time I met Anil Kapoor's daughter Sonam on the sets of her
soon-to-be-her-director Sanjay Bhansali's Black I saw this really tall, dusky sweet and angelic girl eager to prove
herself. Little did I now what was in store for her.
Sonam was trying her best to make herself useful on the sets. She was eager to learn and was raring to go. The fact that
she had just returned from abroad and had the best of education and opportunities, only added to her anxiety to prove
herself.
Spoilt kid? No way! Ranbir Kapoor too is an exact antithesis of what you expect a star-kid to be. Polite, clued-in, alert
savvy AND computer savvy Ranbir cannot afford to be anything but the paragon of patience and discipline. One
slip, and the onlookers will brand him "Kapoor khandaan ka bigda badshah".
Sonam and Ranbir need to prove themselves twice as hard as other newcomers.The fact that they belong to two of
the most illustrious families of filmdom puts an extra burden on them.
It doesn't matter how talented or charming you are. Being privileged means being persecuted. And I don't mean just
being a star-kid. Sammir Dattani comes from a well-to-do business family where cinema isn't an option, its an
indulgence. When he drove down in his flashy red car to meet producers, no one took his 'struggle' seriously.
They just saw this rich spoilt kid desirous of making it into movies. The first thing that the privileged lot of wannabes
–Ranbir, Sonam, Sammir, Upen Patel et al—learnt to do is to throw away their golden spoon.
Be small , be humble and apologetic about your privileged background. It's the only way you will get past the
producer's smirky disdain. I think Abhishek, Esha ,Karisma and Kareena have had to struggle far harder than the
average outsider(some of whom are truly average!). Time after time they were pulled up for where they came from, so
much so that soon they began to believe it was a crime to belong to a film family.
One of them once confessed , "Nothing I do is right. My face, my hair, my body language , facial expressions they are
all supposed to be terrible when compared with my mom. What do I do? Should I publicly disown my pedigree and
pretend to be this poor jhola-carrying struggler from Rohtak who has to sleep her way to the top?"
Relax, my dear. That stereotype is way too passé to be even remotely parodic. Even Mallika Sherawat who once
confessed to me that she had to "claw" her way out of poverty and bigotry turned out to be indulging in a whole lot
self-delusory romantic hokum .
Says Rituparno Ghosh, "The class of archetypal strugglers who landed at Mumbai Central with dreams in their eyes
and five hundred rupees in their pocket, who slept on the pavements and danced for amused producers hoping they'd
get a role, died with Dharmendra and Mithun Chakraborty. There are no strugglers in the true sense. Many of
these new wannabes drive in sports cars and carry glossy portfolios of their pictures. We can't hold their lack of
'struggle' against them. Sammir Dattani for instance has great potential. He carries a look of noble vulnerability on his
face which I find interesting. I want to cast him in a major role. But my producer thinks he's just a rich pampered kid
from Malabar Hill."
Rituparno has more to say. "These young boys and girls are extremely focused because cinema isn't a meal ticket for
them. And by God, they're so professional! One major upcoming 'classic' actress whose first film has got her awards
galore opted out of my big epic film due to date problems. She didn't bother to even call me to opt out. She had her
business manager send me an SMS telling me she had quit, and why. Now what do you say to that?"
Yup, this is a new forceful and upbeat breed which doesn't think much of the old role-model of how a star should
behave. At the same time the new p&p (pampered and privileged) breed of wannabes are bigger stars in their heads
than Rajesh Khanna or Kumar Gaurav could have ever been.
I'm sure Ranbir and Sonam have already decided in their heads that they're star material. Nothing in their attitude will
give away their self-confidence. That's what makes them such exciting performers.
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