The obsession with star relatives must stop

I  don’t mean to be disrespectful, but who is Rajeev Sen? And why is his marriage of such interest to …to… whom? I’ve no clue, why he is written about. He is not a star. His sister  Sushmita Sen is. And really, we can’t get enough on her. Rajeev, I gather is her laadla bhai, her one and only sibling.

I don’t think they are particularly close. At least she never mentioned a younger brother to me during the time when we bonded. Only now, Rajeev is all over the place for his marriage to Charu Asopa whom again, I had heard nothing about until her marriage to the aforementioned Rajeev became a talking point on social media.

Correct me if I am wrong. But this couple married for barely three years now and are not happy with one another. They wanted to separate after a few months, changed their minds, decided to separate again, then again changed their mind. They were together again. This petal-plucking game had its desired effect. Who doesn’t love a suspenseful marital drama with a baby thrown in for extra mileage?

Now the wife is sure she wants to separate because, she says, she has wasted so much of her time in trying to make the marriage work. What about the time wasted by their public bickering? No one knew this couple before they began their very public marital brawl.

Both claim to have a sizeable fan following. I am sure they do. Nowadays anyone and everyone is a potential influencer. Exactly what and whom Charu and Rajeev are influencing, I have no clue.

Indians per se are sickeningly star-stuck. So much so that when they can’t get access to stars directly they try to reach their favourite stars through their drivers and house help who make money by arranging brief meetings of their bosses with their fans on film sets, or give the stars’ phone numbers to the fans, at a price of course.

Star relatives are stars in their own right. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s brother followed him into  Mumbai and became a film director. Govinda’s brother made a film (Radha Ka Sangam) which left Govinda nearly bankrupt.

Luckily for Sushmita, her brother keeps out of her way, although his only claim to fame is his sister. Since his marriage to the television actress, Rajeev has been occupying an obscene amount of space on social media.

Exactly why Rajeev or his marriage is of interest to anyone, is a mystery to me. Why are Indians wasting their time trailing non-entities on the social media who are known to be affiliated to stars in one or another?

Even the star kids like Shah Rukh Khan ’s children or  Saif Ali Khan ’s sons are yet to prove themselves. Why chase them down that road which they are yet to walk?

The other day I was speaking to Saif Ali Khan about the paparazzi’s baffling obsession with his  son and he mentioned that he has now begun to talk to Taimur about who he is, which family he belongs to and why the photographers take so much interest in him.

It’s good to know that Taimur is being told so early in his life that the attention he gets is because of his star parents. But honestly, it is not the tangential attention-getters from star families who need briefing. It is the attention-givers who need to be tutored.

Don’t spoil these star relatives with such unnecessary attention.

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.

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