Post Script of a Super Star

First it was the slimy Laila murder story being hyped for the slain lady being Rajesh Khanna’s last co-star and now it is the ‘Love Story’ between him and Anita Advani that is being flogged to death on leading news channels. There is no dignity spared for even the dead in this country. More so if it is none other than India’s first superstar we are talking about. We may hold a candle and mourn his passing away with millions around the country. We might even shed a tear at the evergreen melodies and films he has left behind to cherish. But thanks to some really insipid and distasteful journalistic fervour and our voyeuristic tendencies, we will also lap up the superhero’s dirty linen that the media is determined to wash in public on 'your' news channels.

So get ready for jarring and tacky cut outs of estranged wife Dimple Kapadia and his alleged ‘companion’ Anita Advani  pitted against a rather haggard looking Khanna in his last days. So much for the man whose last wish was to transform his home in to a museum that housed his memoirs, his heroism, his stardom and his fame. Someone who wishes to be remembered as one of the beacons of superstardom he lived up to be, thanks to his talent, charisma and mass appeal. It’s not even a week since the man bid farewell to this world and we are already digging the sleaze up, revelling in his ‘fallen’ ways and enjoying the suspense of who will finally win his property rights.

The characters in the plot could never have been more set to make for spicy ingredients in an otherwise murky tale. A leading heroine in her heydays as a wife, a star son in law who is currently raking it in at the box office married to an ex-heroine turned interior designer and now pregnant elder daughter. It would have been a shame not to pick these characters right out of real time and transfer them to the convoluted confines of a sensational TV script. Round them up, churn them around, add some gossip and fill up with idle banter from ‘sources’ and you have the makings of a commercial  Hindi potboiler. Much like some of the films Khanna starred in when he was alive. Lots of loud melodrama and bitter squabbles. Think background music...a shot of Anita Advani looking pensive and troubled at the same time with the song, ‘Na Koi Umang Hai, Na Koi Tarang Hai, Meri Zindagi Kya, Ek Kati Patang Hai...’ Kaka hated tears when he was alive. I hope he can forgive us for putting him through the shame of being subjected to such malevolent speculation  after his death.

Karan Johar recently opined that the real world is far more dramatic than the one potrayed in films. Our news journalist friends would know, they make a living out of it everyday.