You could hear the clenched fists though you could not see them. There was the face. Battle weary and lined. And the voice. Laboured. Faltering but trying to pull a frayed temper together. Yes, it is tough being Rupert Murdoch in these times. To be in the public eye in any case is a bit like enjoying a warm bath without any control over the temperature knob. It can get too warm or too cold in a moment and only those who have a thick skin to survive these extremes can last longer than their fame and their public failure. For someone who has had his thumb on the global media triggers, for as long as one can remember, it was as Murdoch himself said, a humbling experience to face questions about his credibility, integrity and the core values of his empire in the blistering gaze of the world.
From serving news of the world to becoming a headline steeped in shame and some shaving cream, would be, to put it mildly, humbling. Thank you and goodbye indeed. Playing with fame and being played by it to the point of shame are two sides of a coin, whether you are running a media empire or are just a celebrity. And every body who has had a public fall from grace knows that.
Fame at the end of a long day is not a real thing. It is not money that can be quantified or earned. It is not a relationship with a real person. It is just a collective perception of who you are. An amorphous opinion that people who don’t know you, have of you because they think they do. And when goodwill turns into an egg on the face or worse, a public trial before a parliamentary committee, only the toughest can survive the shift.
Yet, power and fame are addictive because to the human mind, they represent a taste of immortality. Fame is one of the most important human pursuits because like a friend said to me once, the majority of us live in the perceptions of others. We may not be but we want to be thought of as successful, powerful, happy, popular, fulfilled. We think we are who others think we are. To snuggle in the fame comforter and to keep it warm and fuzzy is sometimes a full time occupation for those who may not even be that famous. To be famous can be a happy accident but to stay famous is an art and no one knows it better than Simi Garewal. Something about the nature of fame draws her compulsively to people who are famous. No upstarts for her.
Her guests have been controversial game changers (yes, Rupert Murdoch), industrialists (Ratan Tata), politicians (the late Benazir Bhutto, Jayalalitha), actors (the Bachchans, the Kapoors and counting). And she sees herself as not an outsider looking in but an insider looking at the inner-most chambers of public lives and whispering, “Confide in me!” That was her tagline for years.
In her head, she is not just any Oprah wannabe come lately. She is privy to secrets that we lesser mortals would kill to know. Like who cut Ranbir Kapoor’s perfect nails, till recently. No seriously, we didn’t know that, did we? On Karan Johar’s show, they all tittered and got away with murder. On hers, they are put on a pedestal and adored and subjected to tarot.
Ironically though, for someone who seems to know so much trivia about the lives of others, she gives away very little about herself. Nothing almost that can reveal the person behind the perfectly tailored jackets. She is almost inanimate perfection as this sighing, cooing, cliche-frothing, accented hostess with the mostest and we cannot see the woman who may have had her own share of heartbreak, disillusionments and pain. No one even knows for sure, just how her fixation with white began. If you discount that her idol Raj Kapoor had a fixation with white too.
There is a failed marriage in there somewhere, a rumoured friendship with Zubin Mehta and a Pakistani politician but nothing you can put your finger on and say, “this is real.” Not a strand of grey. Not a wrinkle. No one in the business is as impervious to time or to reality as she is.
We will never know whether only ambition has fuelled her to make multiple comebacks as an actor, documentary filmmaker or talk show hostess. And be it the much lampooned Rendezvous or the recent Simi Selects India’s Most Desirable, we never fail to notice that the proceedings are as much about her as about those she interviews.
That is not a bad or unusual thing. Every news anchor and talk show host has built a brand image. Some are abrasive. Some garrulous. Simi Garewal’s brand is fastidious sophistication even though some of her ideas maybe shockingly dated. Refer to her indulgent opinions about mama’s boys or her controversial solution to the 26/11 attacks or that juvenile creature called Kiki that she morphs into before squirming young actors.
The surface however is of a Diva who can walk a red carpet even in her sleep. She may be an affectation and yes, we laugh at her and mimic her and she is unwatchable at times. Someone who pays homage to the rich and the famous because they define her by default but there is one thing you cannot deny her. That she is the only media personality of her generation who is still courting fame and getting her share even though she is no longer an actor. Or that she has survived early fame and outlasted failures we will never know about. Beneath all that fluff, Simi Garewal is tirelessly self-inventive and determined to not fade away quietly. The woman who played the school boy crush of Rishi Kapoor in Mera Naam Joker just interviewed his grown up son, and he serenaded her with the Karz theme on his guitar while she blushed like a young girl. Give her some credit.
Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri )