India Uncut

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Sunday, June 11, 2006

The making of a celebrity (and maybe a movie)

What goes into the making of a celebrity in India? It certainly isn't achievement; a lot of Page 3 celebrities have little but cleavages or the ownership of restaurants going for them. Nor does celebrity represent something aspirational; if so, the two people mentioned in the headline below wouldn't be so big, would they?

In jail, Pravin Mahajan exchanges pleasantries with Abu Salem

I remember being shocked at how Ajay Jadeja became a celeb (and a cricket pundit!) after match-fixing allegations ended his cricketing career. And now Pravin Mahajan's on the way . ToI quotes his lawyer as saying that Pravin is "worried about Rahul [Mahajan]'s condition" and that he "had always asked brother Pramod to take care of his son." We are also informed that Pravin “does yoga in jail” and “reads books on philosophy.”

I can’t wait for the photo shoots, and the confessional, and the Bollywood film based on Pravin, with Sarangi, played by Urmila Matondkar, fighting for justice for her husband, played by Anil Kapoor, who didn’t really mean to kill his brother. What’s that, you ask. Pravin didn’t mean to kill Pramod?

No, you see, if you read the full report, you will find that Pravin "said that if he wanted to kill Pramod, he would have shot him in the head to cause instant death." So that clears the matter. He just meant to tickle Pramod with a few gentle bullets. It was just bad luck that the fellow died.

Update: Prisons are a good place for socialising, it would seem. Rahul Mahajan often visits Pappu Yadav "for a chat," we are told.
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