Death of a Star

Last night a popular Bollywood singer died in Calcutta. His name is KK. Short for some long South Indian name. He was performing on stage at some college fest when he felt uncomfortable and subsequently died of heart attack. The social media world is full of it. Analysing the death, blaming the organisers and the government etc etc.

I was just thinking about it. How totally disconnected I am from the current entertainment scene. I had never even heard this name before, but now that he is dead I am getting to read a lot about him. He seems pretty popular. He was relatively much young and certainly not old enough to die. It is indeed a tragic death. 

Something similar had happened when actor Sushant Singh Rajput died. He had committed suicide. The entire universe sort of came to a halt. I didn't have any clue as to who he was. Never heard the name. But then I realised that I was perhaps the only man in India who did not know this name. 

Actually, I am not a consumer of entertainment. I wasn't like this for all times but in the recent couple of decades my definition of entertainment has undergone a sea change. I do not read the entertainment segment of the newspapers. Truth be told, I have stopped reading newspapers altogether. I have realised that important news will come to me in any case. And news that does not come to me is not worth reading. 

I have never in my life read the Page 3 sections of any newspaper. When Telegraph made a separate pull out called T2, it became easier for me to deal with that section of the paper. I would just chuck it  out. 

I have grown a similar distaste for cricket. The game has now become just an extension of Bollywood. The two always had an affinity for each other but now it is very overtly and shamelessly so. 

I watch international football for sure, English and other European football to be more precise. I watch cycling tours like the Giro or le Tour. I also watch grand slam tennis. While football is watched by some of my friends, no one I personally know watches cycling tours (many do not even know the tour names other than Tour de France). So in a sense I am friendless in that area.

Gitanjali Who? 

The other day we were posting meaningless images on our whatsapp group of school friends. This was being done for fun. Someone posted the food she cooked. A broker friend posted an image of his terminal. I posted the cover of the book Tomb of Sand by Gitanjali Shree. It had just arrived at work. The book, in case you do not know, has just won the Booker. The first Indian author to win the Booker and her original work is in Hindi. 

The broker was very happy and asked if this Gitanjali is Mampu, my daughter. 

I was so shocked that I could only come up with - no, she spells her name as Geetanjali plus she is Roy (as opposed to Shree). He said he thought Shree was possibly her co-author.

It did not occur to him if Geetanjali wrote a book published by Penguin and was shortlisted for Booker (it's written on the cover), I would probably announce this at a party in the Oberoi or Taj. He is otherwise quite well educated and in terms of cultural moorings fairly at a higher level than many of my other friends. 

I rest my case about my disconnect with my society, your honour.