Bollywood Blitzkrieg – Zubaan Sambhal Ke! 
By Subhash K. Jha, January 29, 2007 - 09:03 IST
Singer Sunidhi Chauhan has a lot to answer for. Don't get me wrong. I think she has the most smouldering vocal aptitudes on this side of Asha Bhosle and Alisha Chinai.
But recently I was horrified; if that's the word I want to see Sunidhi doing a takeoff on Lataji in a cheap comedy show on television.
Let me remind Sunidhi she was doing a takeoff on a woman, an institution and a legend who has gone far beyond any human definition of success and iconization.
Heads don't just turn when Lataji walks into a room. They bow in reverence. You don't imitate the sound of God pouring nectar down from heaven. Who may I ask is Sunidhi to mimic our country's most revered icon?
Is Sunidhi trying to say there are no scared cows in the world we live in, that everything is open to ridicule?
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai?!
What a pathetic state of affairs when there are no more heroes left for us to look up to!
Showbiz is gradually inching towards a place where there're no heroes, only the zeroes on the cheque.
Paisa pheko tamasha dekho. That's the prevalent mood in tinsel town. According to Hollywood's celebrated writer William Goldman the biggest lie in showbiz is, "I promise not to lose control in your mouth."
According to me the biggest lie in Indian showbiz is "I promise not to open my mouth." With the exception of a selected breed of genuinely discreet stars, most of them love to be written about. And there's a special brand of paper-stars who thrive on self-generated heat.
I remember once speaking to this really sorry wannabe named Saahil Khan who was being linked and winked with another truly obnoxious specimen of all-hype-no-substance called Negar Khan.
I expressed sympathy to Khan about being placed in the vortex of the unsavory mud-slinging. "Not at all!" He surprised me. “I realize publicity is important. I want to be written about, no matter how."
At least Saahil is honest about his sordid intentions. What about the murky manner in which a desperate startlet (don't want to give her any more publicity by naming her ) has been going on and on about a birthday smooch?
For God's sake, get a life, lady. And get yourself a good mouth-wash and some mint. And then get on with the show.
To hear this lady getting coy about a kiss is like Nadeem complaining about Shravan, or Britney Spears complaining about zipper-snags.
When you unzip in public something is bound to pop out. I've heard truly lurid tales about the lady in question. Once she apparently came to audition before an all-male group for a 'Mirchi' song.
When the curious interviewers asked her to show what she's got, the lady dropped everything to the ground. And not just her modesty.
"Are they real?" a producer, sitting with his curious coterie of creative compatriots, asked another truly audacious starlet. She put their doubts to rest immediately with full and final proof.
I find center-spread starlets to be an excessively amusing breed. I love their brassy devil-may-care caution-and-clothes-to-the-winds attitude. "I know I've a good body, and people want to see it. So why should I be shy about it?" an upwardly mobile wannabe whispered into my burning ears.
What happened to good old modesty? It's all about flamboyant flaunting. So last week we had a producer going on-record to claim Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty fought at a dubbing studio over their scenes in their latest release.
But Akshay was in Spain and Suniel in Vancouver when the fight supposedly happened!
Are we somewhere allowing the entertainment industry to take the media for a ride? Or are we simply giving readers daily doses of heroin…
But dammit, where are the heroes???!!!
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Bollywood Blitzkrieg - NRI Blues and desi hues
