Aishwarya Rai Baby (Girl)
Yes! India’s most awaited celeb-baby has arrived. Jai ho! Little Miss World is finally here. Family Bachchan is over the moon. And so are their fans. Congratulations, Aishwarya and Abhishek. Mubarak ho! Now can we all please get back to work… to our rather dull lives, and leave the parents of the newborn to get on with theirs? After the unprecedented speculation, interest, gossip and publicity surrounding the pregnancy of our most beautiful actress, it’s time for some respite.
Really! The relentless tracking of Aishwarya’s every twitch and flutter, the huge amounts of betting money involved, followed by the unusual code of ethics regarding media coverage of the big event, made one wonder whether even Princess Di had been subjected to such scrutiny when she gave birth to the heir (and spare) of the British throne.
More recently, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy delivered her little girl minus too much of a media frenzy. Why, even Posh Beckham produced her latest bundle of joy without the waiting world holding its collective breath for the momentous delivery. Baby B’s case is unique. Almost from the day she was conceived, there was news value attached to the dramatic announcement. Even if one overlooks the Madhur Bhandarkar-Heroine controversy, Baby B was deemed “hot” by the breathless media. It is to Aishwarya’s credit that she chose good sense and propriety over instant publicity and nonstop coverage by dropping out of sight for the first few months of her much-awaited, much-debated pregnancy. Perhaps it was natural caution, even superstition, that dictated Aishwarya’s decision. In retrospect, it was the way to go.
We love our desi traits — well, most of them. We believe in nazar and most expectant mothers lie low for the first five months of pregnancy, afraid of consequences that have a lot to do with the idea of someone’s “evil eye” falling on them. All this is true and understandable. What was harder to figure out was the exaggerated media interest in this particular case. It was as if viewers and readers could think of little else beyond Baby B’s sex and arrival date. At one point it became a national obsession with the equivalent of a countdown programme monitoring the progress of Aishwarya’s growing girth.
Several top actresses have taken maternity leave to go off and have their babies. Some have taken permanent leave after that and left movies for good. Others have waited for the kids to grow up a little before announcing a comeback. Two of them (Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor) are bravely in the running once again, and soldiering on, as they await their respective fates at a very cruel box office. Sridevi is the bravest of them all as she readies herself for her return to the big screen after years of being just a svelte mom to two daughters. Sonali Bendre and Raveena Tandon were never in the same league as the others, but they have sensibly settled for a different niche. Being a Bollywood goddess does come with certain caveats. It remains to be seen how Aishwarya’s career shapes up after the birth of her tiny bundle of joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment