Celebrity life: The price of being rich & famous

Every breath you take/every move you make/ every bond you break/ every step you take, I’ll be watching you — Police.

The above-mentioned lyrics from the prominent English rock band Police rightly mirror the other side of a celebrity’s life. Like there’s a flip side to every coin, a lull before a storm and a cloudy day after the first flicker of morning sunshine, so is a celeb constantly confronting the vicissitudes of his journey by experiencing the unpredictable highs and lows of life. He may either hit rock bottom now or a high climax of good fortune then. The recent spate of controversies clearly establishes this fact.

In the Panama papers’ data leak, megastar Amitabh Bachchan (ironically he is the current-year National Award winner in the Best Actors’ category), along with his bahu-actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and now the Padma awardee Ajay Devgn’s names got enlisted. As a result, Big B is allegedly stripped off from endorsing the “Incredible India” campaign. However Bachchan’s brush with turbulence is nothing new. From Bofors in politics to the Income Tax department’s unpalatably desperate alert on his hospital-bed to farmland issues in his native place to today’s furore, the tall “angry man” has been weathering many scowls so far.

Actor Salman Khan tastes a bitter medicine of “being human” when he emerges as the Goodwill Brand Ambassador of the Indian contingent in the upcoming Rio Olympic Games to be held in Brazil. He is the man of choice from the prestigious stable of Indian Olympic Association (IOA). But the decision was outrightly censured from a certain section of senior sportspersons and an open debate still rages on. This also reminds us of the last year’s crucial debate on intolerance which had pilloried the other two Khan-heroes — perfectionist Aamir and Bollywood badshah Shah Rukh — for their comments on the issue.

Captain cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni recently snaps all ties with the “builder under scanner” Amrapali after its residents of a Noida-based housing project swamp Twitter with a campaign of complaints. Incidentally, a parliamentary panel is reportedly set to recommend a fat monetary penalty and a jail-term of upto approximately five years to those celebrities who support misguiding adverts.

Psychologists would rather try and conjecture that “this continuous buffet against the rough waters of life fortifies a public figure’s resilience too”. None is above the law which shall take its own course and based on this argument, no “high and mighty” illustrious identity should walk free by means of arm twisting or other corrupted methods. However, everyone is entitled to a fair trial in the court. And many feel that celebs are easily caught in the eye of a storm and framed on the wrong side of the law. And if ever they are seen with a foot in their mouth, then God help them!

But is celeb bashing comparatively a safer option as it makes news fast and spreads like wildfire From media exposé to negative press, nothing stops hounding the headliners or well-known people who seem to have achieved some kind of a position in the society. Their opinion leaves an impact and so does snowball into a ruckus.

“I think this phenomenon comes in as part and parcel of a celebrity package. If you enjoy the adulation your admirers bring you, their expectation naturally soars to great heights and falling short of that mark, can cause a calamity. They can’t accept their idols’ image being tarnished so tactlessly. So as a celeb, you win some and lose some even at the top of your game,” offers Kolkata-based psychologist Suvarna Sen. “Otherwise peeping into somebody’s bedroom and personal life is ethically wrong. But voyeurism has become a popular culture and fantasy when it comes to following a celebrity’s life. From paparazzis to gatecrashers to fan-frenzy to mass hysteria, celebs are unduly victimised of an exaggerated violent expression. More often than not, fans tend to mix up the onscreen persona with off-screen reality. Sadly enough, in our country, religion is too tipped off to be an issue of large-scale dispute and riot,” she elaborates ahead.

Chased, stalked, monitored, judged and scrutinised, celebs can no longer lead a life of a recluse in the age of social media or get cloistered for long inside an ivory fortress. One needs to reveal and open up very frequently these days to be in public memory all the time which is a short-lived space and clattered with too many events happening around. Fact is, tracking down a celeb address is no that longer difficult, thanks to the teeming online portals and networking sites. So one cannot really shut himself up from a chaotic world, even if he wants to.

When there is too much on one’s plate to digest, then the head gets clogged and looks for a vent to discharge the excess. It’s like having more to bite than what you can actually chew. “Therefore psychological counselling sessions can really help to redress this crisis,” suggests Sen.

Actress Deepika Padukone recently confessed to undergo treatment for depression, though Priyanka Chopra and her mother have blatantly denied her secretary’s alleged report that claimed of her suicide attempt during her struggling phase. Many celebs find solace in spiritualism — a divine connect. It renders them a kind of escape route to gain calm. They also resort to pep talks, motivation speeches, meditation camps and yoga sessions to get rid of the plaguing doldrums.

True, being rich and the famous is not always rewarding. It can be pricey too. First it’s always lonely on top because once you reach the pinnacle of success you make less friends and more foes. Earning name, recognition and moolah then seems the only positive return to one’s bank-safe. Thus managing the image and persona in tandem with one’s flourishing career is imperative in present-day situation. And therefore, indispensability of the PR industry is logically evoked here. Image consultant Prachi Mishra approves of the statement that “from spheres of politics, fashion, education, corporate, entertainment, art& culture to F&B industry plus other allied public sectors, the exercise of image building and management has become a necessary norm than a service of luxury”. She further agrees to observe that “even A-list celebrities have PR personnel to put across their point of view, convey crucial messages, update their profiles with interesting add-ons, incidents, achievements, videos plus photos, etc.” Ask her how essential is this PR drive to stay at the pinnacle of public life, and she elucidates that “in today’s socially connected world, people are always looking up for celeb profiles online, reading about their work reviews, personal lifestyles and tweeting about them. All these details are readily accessed at the click of a mouse. They would mostly love to believe what they visually consume of you online. Hence it is crucial to be seen in the right light.” “A P R advice and expertise help the concerned celebrity promote their brand, voice their opinion and talk about their projects in an interesting manner. Their job also involves crisis management and fixing up the unwanted bad propaganda. Plus they are responsible for finding out good opportunities for celebs in question to make multiple public appearances. All these activities in turn lead to develop a vein of curiosity about a celebrity’s whereabouts in the minds of people. See, visibility is important for success. Hence in today’s context, public relations have become more important than ever before for all celebs to handle their image and prosper with dignity,” she asserts. A celeb’s life is thus an open book and he continuously lives on a razor-edge. Albeit a deified icon is envied from afar and envisioned as a dream, but in reality he/she has to pay a lot of price to maintain that status. First is privacy. For his statements and movements are incessantly scanned 24X7. Gradually loneliness creeps in as his busy schedule isolates him from leading a normal social life and he ends up moving in his own circles and mingling with his own fraternity. So apart from the coveted name, fame and moolah, a celeb must sacrifice and compromise to stay at the peak. It is easy to make them soft targets of scathing criticisms and easy preys to brickbats. On one hand, they are valued as bankable stars and sell like hot-cakes, while on the other they are quickly made controversy’s favourite children.