Published: The Times of India Plus 28 July 2021
The large crowd, spilling over to the street and blocking the traffic, caught my eye a warm Saturday morning. It mystified me, for I had heard of no planned political rally in the city. Our house faced a movie house and my second-floor room window gave a wide-angle view of its portico and entrance. What could it be? Could the winsome Nimmi, the heroine of the new release, whose giant cutout adorned the theater entrance, be the expected guest at the cinema? Would I be so lucky as to catch a sight of the ample goddess?
A school student, bursting with hormones and curiosity, I would not budge from my window. I ate my breakfast, the bowl of ginger granola my mother had served, standing impatiently at the window and scanning the street. The crowd had multiplied, the traffic had stalled, and a police posse was trying bravely to keep things in order. People seemed excited, anticipating something special and periodically giving a shout, of annoyance or ebullience I wasn’t sure.
Finally, after more than an hour of waiting, there was a deafening roar, as a big black limousine slowly slid through the throng. A door opened, a person emerged, but six burly bodyguards ringed him and let neither me nor the people see the person. A groan of discontent arose from the crowd. I returned to the last dregs of my granola in despair.
A school student, bursting with hormones and curiosity, I would not budge from my window. I ate my breakfast, the bowl of ginger granola my mother had served, standing impatiently at the window and scanning the street. The crowd had multiplied, the traffic had stalled, and a police posse was trying bravely to keep things in order. People seemed excited, anticipating something special and periodically giving a shout, of annoyance or ebullience I wasn’t sure.
Finally, after more than an hour of waiting, there was a deafening roar, as a big black limousine slowly slid through the throng. A door opened, a person emerged, but six burly bodyguards ringed him and let neither me nor the people see the person. A groan of discontent arose from the crowd. I returned to the last dregs of my granola in despair.
Then the remarkable thing happened. Suddenly, miraculously, on the extended upper-floor balcony of the theater appeared a lithe, smiling man, and a giant, spiraling roar of excitement rose from the multitude. It wasn’t really a man, it was Dev Anand, who patently trumped the 330 million gods of the land. He had on a black shirt, tight black pants, a flamboyant vermilion necktie and an exaggerated pompadour that was his trademark. He also wore five large marigold garlands that must have been foisted on him when he entered the theater.
Dev Anand edged closer to the front end of the balcony where his assembled admirers could see him better. He acknowledged the unceasing successive waves of noisy adulation, not with the customary folded hands, nor with the prosaic uplifted arms, but with a strange mock-military style of sloppy salute. Once, twice, thrice – and each time a vociferous howl signaled the crowd’s grateful acknowledgment.
Then His Stardom played his masterstroke. He took the first garland from his neck, bent low and threw it with great force to a section of the crowd. The crowd went wild. People ran, pushed, clawed, fought, grabbed, for a fraction of the garland – or even of a marigold. Before the scuffle was over, Dev Anand took the second garland, bent low again and tossed it to another section of the crowd. Once again, a ferocious pursuit, followed by a furious melee, as people jostled and struggled to secure the minutest part of the star’s cast-off gift.
The same scenario played out three more times as the star carefully and energetically, as if he was playing a board game, neatly lobbed a garland in a new direction and provoked a mad frenzy for a fragment of a torn and worthless garland. You saw a thousand hands stretch to touch a particle of a marigold that might have touched the holy corpus of their celluloid deity. Each time after the showy exercise Dev Anand stood erect again, watched the frantic race for a tossed garland and flashed a broad smile. He seemed satisfied, like a master choreographer, that he had created precisely the denouement he had intended.
I was young and naïve, but by the fifth encore of the performance I began to feel a creepy sensation. Something was disturbing, in fact revolting, in the calculated game of using people’s adulation to tempt them into a humiliating scramble for a trifle. We all admire some people, somebody beautiful or successful or famous, but to race like hounds for a useless memento seemed demeaning for humans.
Years later, I did some stints for the movie industry and got to mingle with some beautiful people both in the east and the west. I would talk to famous stars and be taken aback by their unalloyed confidence that they were the Chosen People who fully merited their place in the sun. They took for granted the affection and admiration that came their way. They seemed oblivious that such exaltation was invariably fleeting, very fleeting. And that the people who offered it were human too, just like them.
Dev Anand edged closer to the front end of the balcony where his assembled admirers could see him better. He acknowledged the unceasing successive waves of noisy adulation, not with the customary folded hands, nor with the prosaic uplifted arms, but with a strange mock-military style of sloppy salute. Once, twice, thrice – and each time a vociferous howl signaled the crowd’s grateful acknowledgment.
Then His Stardom played his masterstroke. He took the first garland from his neck, bent low and threw it with great force to a section of the crowd. The crowd went wild. People ran, pushed, clawed, fought, grabbed, for a fraction of the garland – or even of a marigold. Before the scuffle was over, Dev Anand took the second garland, bent low again and tossed it to another section of the crowd. Once again, a ferocious pursuit, followed by a furious melee, as people jostled and struggled to secure the minutest part of the star’s cast-off gift.
The same scenario played out three more times as the star carefully and energetically, as if he was playing a board game, neatly lobbed a garland in a new direction and provoked a mad frenzy for a fragment of a torn and worthless garland. You saw a thousand hands stretch to touch a particle of a marigold that might have touched the holy corpus of their celluloid deity. Each time after the showy exercise Dev Anand stood erect again, watched the frantic race for a tossed garland and flashed a broad smile. He seemed satisfied, like a master choreographer, that he had created precisely the denouement he had intended.
I was young and naïve, but by the fifth encore of the performance I began to feel a creepy sensation. Something was disturbing, in fact revolting, in the calculated game of using people’s adulation to tempt them into a humiliating scramble for a trifle. We all admire some people, somebody beautiful or successful or famous, but to race like hounds for a useless memento seemed demeaning for humans.
Years later, I did some stints for the movie industry and got to mingle with some beautiful people both in the east and the west. I would talk to famous stars and be taken aback by their unalloyed confidence that they were the Chosen People who fully merited their place in the sun. They took for granted the affection and admiration that came their way. They seemed oblivious that such exaltation was invariably fleeting, very fleeting. And that the people who offered it were human too, just like them.
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