Friday, January 19, 2007

Bigot Brother...

So Shilpa Shetty is in the midst of a major crisis. Rediff has a "Special" on it to match its "Specials" on issues such as the the Gujarat riots, the Tsunami, the Jessica Lal murder case, the brutal Noida killings or the Mumbai Blast case. Seriously!

The issue has been raised in The Commons by Labour MP Keith Vaz (an MP of Indian origin). The Prime Minister, Tony Blair responded to the question at question-time. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was forced to field questions on this issue while leading a high-level delegation of business people to India. Neither Brown nor Blair had seen the program. And why would they?

The Guardian has commented on it. The Times in London has written about it. Germaine Greer got in on the act with a column in The Guardian. The episode even made it to TV news bulletins and also on to the mainstream, respected AM package in Australia's own ABC!

I don't know Shilpa Shetty. But in an attempt to find out more about her, I tried to find her web-presence. I reached her website. However, in an attempt to field the surge in traffic to her website a few intro pages appear to have been added to her website by her managers. This includes contact details of her manager as well as a statement from her management.

Good on them for cashing in. Why won't they?

I don't know any of the movies Shilpa Shetty has acted in. I don't care either. The fact that she is not mentioned in the same breath as Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Nandita Das, Smitha Patil, Madhir Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Rani Mukherjee, et al suggests that she is probably not an A-Grade actress.

I heard a clip on radio in which she asks, "Why does everyone hate me? Why am I so hated?". I then understood why she wasn't being mentioned in the same missives as the afore-mentioned Indian actors. She is probably just an actor that's acting out there on the "Not-so-Celebrity BIGot Brother" that's going on in the UK!

Does anyone really believe that this Bigot Brother thing is for real? Isn't it all staged... badly? It seems to me that the only thing that is for real in this reality-TV caper is the TV!

The fact that Shilpa Shetty is now a 10/3 favourite to win the show just indicates how out of touch I am with popular culture!

Good luck to her and her tribe...

1 comment:

  1. Duffy Duck7:39 pm

    I agree with you for I don’t know anything about Shlipa Shetty and I don’t anything about Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Nandita Das, Smitha Patil, Madhir Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Rani Mukherjee.

    So what is this ‘Bigot Brother’ all about?

    I do remember hearing a clip on radio in which a woman asked , "Why does everyone hate me? Why am I so hated?"

    At that time, I did not know who it was, now after reading your post I know who it was.

    when you say “I don't know Shilpa Shetty. But in an attempt to find out more about her, I tried to find her web-presence.” Since I am a psychiatrist, when people say that they don’t know someone and yet write an article about them, it shows the person did not want anyone to misunderstand his character as he may have a family and reputation to protect.

    Do you fall in the above category, where you want to say something about a woman yet you did not want anyone to misunderstand your character keeping in my mind your age and profession.

    If that is the case, I may have to say it is a “Wonderful post in a Wrong blog.”

    You can start a fake blog and write whatever you want and you need not worry about tainting your character image.

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