Ash & privacy

Some stars will tell you they are “really very shy”, then proceed to bare their hearts to the dictaphone you have placed in front of them. Some will send out feelers through their publicist or agent, others will call you when a controversy erupts because they want you to print “my side of the story”. Many will insist, “no personal questions, please,” when what they really mean is “No inconvenient personal questions, please”. For, they will have no problems talking about their diet, their children or what their first kiss was like so long as you don't ask about the relationship they don't want to talk about. Others will insist that you give them the latest gossip before they tell you what they have up their sleeve. And of course, all of them will give off-the-record tidbits. There are just a handful of stars, such as Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor or Karan Johar, who love the media attention and are not hypocritical about it; Shah Rukh will even sportingly admit he overdoses us during his carpet-bombing publicity blitzes. At the other extreme are those such as Sridevi, Rani Mukerji or Katrina Kaif, who are fundamentally wary of the press, give few interviews and are always guarded.

And then there are some intrinsically private people who genuinely do not wish to go public with their personal lives (in the larger sense and not just in terms of relationships). Aishwarya Rai is one of them. Right from the beginning of her film career, Aishwarya has not opened up about any of her relationships. She rarely talks about her family, her clothes, her holidays, her diet, or what-have-you. While Shah Rukh, and even Aamir Khan went to town with how they got their six-packs, Aishwarya did no such thing when she got in shape for Dhoom 2 . You won't find her commenting on politics, other film stars or celebrities, unless it is in a work-related context. If at all she opens a window into her personal space, it will be for the briefest glimpse.

In short, she talks about her work and little else, really. And she will keep it professional. I remember that during an interview with her at her home, she shut the door, allowed no distractions and had not even brought her cell-phone into the room (stars not organically linked to their cell-phones is a rare sight indeed in Bollywood).

It would also be fair to say Aishwarya has rarely courted the press over the last decade or so. For the simple reason that she has not needed to; the cameras and journalists follow her unrelentingly anyway. This is not to say she hasn't used the press. Of course she has, especially in her early years in the industry; every aspiring or rising star does, legitimately so.

But somewhere during her turbulent relationship with Salman Khan, as the controversies and scoops got wilder and the questions more difficult to face, she started clamming up. The Vivek Oberoi phase didn't help either and with each passing year, she gave fewer interviews, though she did enough cover pictures and glam photographs to keep her visibility going. By the time she was seeing Abhishek Bachchan, she refused to talk about her personal life almost entirely. The photographs dwindled away too.

Offensive rumours

The transition was understandable. Few film stars… okay, make that no Indian film star …has suffered the kind of intrusions into their personal space and offensive rumours about the most vulnerable aspects of their personal life that Aishwarya has.

For sheer variety and colour, the stories surrounding her tempestuous affair with Salman Khan will be difficult for any star (except Salman himself, of course) to match. She has been allegedly married off to a tree, supposedly to ward off any bad luck accruing to her husband on account of her being a manglik . Wild surmises about her ‘efforts' to get pregnant have been bandied about in all seriousness. She was said to be afflicted by “tuberculosis of the stomach” which reportedly hampered her chances of conceiving a child (she was enraged enough to demand a retraction from the publication that printed that piece).

Aishwarya's response to most of these recent intrusions has been, in one word: silence. When pushed to the limits of her endurance, she hasn't, like most stars, handed out an ‘Exclusive!' interview to give her side of the story, she has issued a press statement, as she did when the Salman Khan story got particularly problematic after their break-up.

Mum's the word

During her marriage preparations, we heard nothing from her about what she was wearing for the wedding, her designer trousseau, her jewellery or her honeymoon. She did not announce her pregnancy; she left that to her husband and father. She gave no mushy interviews, did no lavish photo-spreads. In fact, she was rarely seen in public and the paparazzi got just a handful of photo-ops. Despite this — or perhaps because of it — the curiosity about her delivery reached levels unprecedented for any Indian celebrity.

Though her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan and husband Abhishek have been far more forthcoming, Aishwarya has kept mum, if you'll pardon the pun. While Abhishek has nicknamed the baby ‘Beti B' and tweets about her, his wife keeps her silence.

So, perhaps it is fitting that, in an extraordinary move, the electronic media and much of the print media as well, decided to allow Aishwarya her privacy during her entry into motherhood. It is an extraordinary gesture not merely because it has not been offered to any other film star, but because it has been offered to a film star at all.

When Sonia Gandhi — another very private woman — had her recent surgery, an omerta ruled the Congress, other political parties and much of the media as well (even if the rumours about what surgery she had still swirl without rest). I found this somewhat strange and unfair, for two reasons. One, the state of Sonia's health could have a direct impact on the country's destiny. Two, if the country is spending crores of rupees on her, surely it has the right to be told about her illness.

In that sense, film stars don't really owe it to us to open up about their personal life. They are not public servants, they make no claims to be ready to sacrifice their lives for the country. If they entertain the press, that is their generosity, weakness or smarts, depending on your view. Yet the press hounds them, often uncharitably and inhumanly, shows them little consideration even in their most vulnerable moments and will freely speculate on everything from their Botox jobs to the state of their marriages or even wombs.

The restraint shown in Aishwarya's case was duly acknowledged by the Bachchans, who obliged by holding a press conference when the baby and mother came home. This is a pact that could change the rules of the game.

Now let's see if the media will show the same grace to other film stars. And if they will finally grant film stars the same consideration they show our far more scandalous politicians.

shashibaliga@gmail.com

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