Priyanka Chopra is a fans’ delight, some others are not

Priyanka Chopra Jonas recently came home to India for three whole days after three years…wow! Ghar aaja pardesi teri des bulaye re… and all that jazz-baat.I wonder why such limited time, and why so much curiosity about her visit before she arrived. The over-informed section of the media even knew her itinerary. They wrote that she was coming to Mumbai to discuss projects with two of her favourite directors Vishal Bhardwaj and Sanjay Leela Bhansali . Priyanka didn’t know it; neither did Bhansali or Bhardwaj. But the super-snoopers got their hands on Mrs Jonas’s secret appointment diary which even she didn’t possess. Very impressive. Even more so were the crowds that accumulated at 2 am at the Mumbai airport. Of course, the paps were pre-informed of her TOA (time of arrival). Priyanka loves attention, the more the merrier. She is a complete people’s person, a sunflower that would wither if it were not for the sun. Surya-mookhi, the sunshine girl. Once upon a time when we used to be friends, Priyanka told me, “We do all this for the attention. And then we pretend we don’t like it when we get it.” No such pretence for Priyanka. She loves being with her fans and some of them can be really persuasive. During her latest visit (why only three days, Priyanka, Manoj Kumar Saab is so disappointed with you) there was this lady who gifted Priyanka with a jar of mango achaar. She then made a cringe-worthy video of it where she actually tells us that Priyanka has been the proud recipient of the aam ka achaar.

The anything but aam aurat Priyanka had the grace to come on camera and gush over the gift. “Meri toh ek mahine ki setting ho gayi (I have my quota of pickles for a month)”, etc etc. The above encounter shows how wonderful Priyanka is with handling over-friendly self-promotional fans. Not every star is as skilled with fans. Anushka Sharma gets agitated when they pap her daughter. Priyanka would just smile and ask them to back off. Priyanka loves to interact with people. When she invited me home for the first time the cook-bait was, ‘Come, I will feed you the best aloo parathas in the world.’ The first time I ever went to her home in Mumbai, her brother then 15, sauntered into the room with a lollipop in his mouth. She told him firmly to get that thing out of his mouth and say hello to her friend. Siddharth (I think that’s his name) reluctantly complied and fled. “Not everyone is as gregarious as you,” I told Priyanka to ease the embarrassment. “It’s really not a choice. If you are in the public eye you’ve got to be gregarious.” This was long before international stardom and Nick Jonas. Luckily, she married into a family that has seen generations of stardom. Pickles and pickled fans are child’s play for her. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.