Bhawana Somaaya

Overworked, insecure and constantly in the public eye, film stars have to deal with more stress than most people, especially the heroines. Some escape, whereas others just crack up.

Insecurity is an overwhelming emotion in any creative profession. There are more emotional wrecks in the film industry than anywhere in the world. There’s hardly an entertainer alive who hasn’t suffered the highs and lows of a showbiz career. There’s the superstar who becomes the jinxed star, the oomph heroine who becomes a C-grade glamour queen and the box-office director who ends up a has-been.

Drug addicts…secret hospitalization…All kinds of therapies, all kinds of doctors… Some play games, the clever ones. They are better fighters, they survive. Some hit the bottle, the weaker ones, they escape. Some turn to involvements, the lazy ones, who need live crutches to overcome crisis.

One reason for this being that they live their most intimate moments in the glare of publicity…Shabana Azmi once said that just when everything is going all right, the media has a way of destroying it. With a vengeance, journalists dig out skeletons and the tension starts all over again. Rekha adds that a happy moment has unfailingly followed with something ominous. “Not one, but several things go wrong in a row.”

So accustomed are the stars to a regular dose of pressure that in its absence, they become suspicious and restless. Dimple Kapadia confesses that she feels at a loss when she has nothing to worry about. “When I made a comeback in films, journalists were forever dragging my growing daughters into gossip columns. This was unnecessary and it hurt.”

Moushumi Chatterjee opines that it’s very difficult for a married actress to succeed without family cooperation. “The strain is too much. The profession demands that you look beautiful, perform on the sets and also remain disciplined. It is not easy to play the perfect professional and also run an efficient home. Stardom is a full-time job. If you are not shooting, you are dubbing, traveling, holding story-sessions or partying.”

Poonam Dhillon agrees. “How can we lead a normal life when we are encountering abnormal experiences all the time? A minute before the shot we are laughing and joking with the hero and the next minute, the scene demands that we burst into tears. We do emotional scenes when we are cheerful and comedy scenes when we feel low.”

All these pressures take its toll. Sometimes, they result in serious health hazards. After ten years of successive rain sequences, Moushumi suffers from Eosinophilia. Legendary actress Meena Kumari was advised by her psychiatrist to take a break from tragedy roles for it was leading her to chronic depression. A cross-section of interviews with star physicians reveal that almost all of them suffer fear psychosis and psychosomatic ailments like asthma, acidity, diabetes and insomnia are common among celebrities.

In the ’70s when Sharmila Tagore was working round the clock, she was well-known for her fiery temper. Today, Sharmila regrets the image. “I was overworked and expected everyone to understand forgetting that they have their own problems too.”

A lot of heroines particularly from the olden times faced immense pressure from within the family itself. A lot of them were the sole earning member of a large family and after a lifetime before the camera, managed little savings to call their own. Says Aruna Irani, “When I was working in C-grade films, my brothers and sisters were mere toddlers…The family had to pay off large debts and by the time I started making money, their expenditures had multiplied too.”

Madhubala, Nanda, Waheeda Rehman, Bindu, Rekha are examples of sibling sacrifice. Meena Kumari was pushed into acting at tender age of eleven. Lonely and high-strung, she sought refuge in alcohol. Nadira called her a masochist but there were many who empathized with the extra-ordinary artiste. Sarika made her debut when she was only five. She recalls how her mother used the travel money paid to her by producers to buy groceries. She reveals that she would be fast asleep on the sets and would be jolted awake because the shot was ready. Today, an older and wiser Sarika says that she’d hate her daughters to go through what she did.

Stardom offers no explanations for pushing artistes into oblivion. Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit have all had to vacate thrones. The first time Waheeda Rehman played a mother role, she felt disoriented and the first time Raakhee played mother on screen she was unprepared for the paradigm shift in her career. Show business is a cruel world where physical appearance is emphasized to a point of obsession.

Padmini Kolhapure and Madhuri Dixit going through adolescence at that time were forever made to feel guilty about a common problem like acne. Every time Padmini’s mirror showed a pimple in the morning, her first thought was not what her boyfriend said, but what the director would say. The last time it happened, the cameraman had scowled and said, “It disturbs my close-ups.” In a world where per day costs raked in crores, common courtesy was the last priority.

The name of the game is business and when it was time for curtain call, everybody had to take a bow. Tabu felt threatened by Manisha Koirala, Manisha by Karisma Kapoor, Karisma by Urmila Matondkar and so on and so forth. Treated like products, their price fluctuates faster than the stock market. When their film is a hit, their market goes up, whenthy flop, their price comes down. Happiness for most is an alien zone.

Some like Shabana Azmi are able to analyze the vicious cycle and rise above it. “If everyone is insecure all the time why even bother to rationalize what goes wrong and why?” And showbiz respects the likes of her. Not all are as intelligent and therefore suffer.

Hopping from studio to studio and make-up room to make-up room, changing costumes and characters in film after film and year after year cannot be all that simple. It is after all a profession of heightened consciousness; the stars in their violent outpourings before the camera, cease being realistic and bottled up emotions give way at the most unexpected moments… A dinner party, a shooting, a family gathering…

Predictably, all of them shy away from any mention of psychotics. Only the late Divya Bharti admitted to seeking counseling and Farha admitted to being suicide-prone.
Veteran actress Achala Sachdev, who played the charming mother to many heroes in the `60s, quit films after a nervous breakdown.

Surprisingly, learning lines is a common cause for tension for most actors. Says Mahesh Bhatt, “An actor remains a student until his dying day…Everyday, he has to go through the ordeal of learning scenes or dance steps and he does this in the presence of an entire unit. We don’t realize this but this in a way demoralizes him.”

Hollywood is full of stories of stars cracking up. Our stars are learning to emerge out of their success stories unscathed but not all are able to do it. In the past, Rekha would break into a rash every time she was depressed. Not anymore. Years ago, Shashikala sought solace in spirituality, Parveen Babi in anonymity, Preeti Ganguly in drugs, Suraiya in isolation.

Aishwarya Rai after marriage continues working, Madhuri Dixit finds peace in domesticity and Rani Mukherjee in exercising. Hema Malini finds self expression in dancing, Sridevi in rearing her girls. Pooja Bhatt spends her free time writing scripts. Sarika punches stories on the computer and Meenakshi Sheshadri goes for long walks.

By their own admission, they’ve come to terms. They are happy… Well, almost!

I recently attended a friend’s wedding where they deliberately put strangers on a common table together for dinner. In the beginning every one is awkward and uncomfortable but gradually as the evening progresses everyone dropped their guards and talked about themselves.

Two ladies at my table were house-wives and after going through their detailed time-table I repeat what I have always believed in-housewives in our country don’t work full time but overtime without a break.

There was a doctor who has now retired and spends his time reading newspapers and watching television. He said all these years when I was in practice nobody ever asked me how I was because they were so busy telling me what was ailing them. “Now for the first time everybody asks me how I’m doing and I just love the attention.”

There was a young girl who has just finished her MBA and is waiting for a job. “It is the worst time to have the degree” she explained to me, “Because everybody is an MBA and nobody has a job in this recession time.”

When I introduced myself I was asked a question I always dread to hear: ‘So how does it feel to be a film journalist… Do you believe in the people you write about?’

It’s a question I’m asked time and again by family and friends and it always feels strange to be answerable to them for the illusionary world I’m associated with. It feels strange to defend the dream merchants for whom I’m the outsider.

So when it comes to talking about me with strangers I’m self conscious and don’t reveal too much but they have questions and one common line repeatedly thrown at me is “But you don’t look like a film journalist.’ I have never understood the implication or maybe they expect me dress in ostrich feathers like Helen and perform an item number which I don’t.

It has to do with perceptions and if society holds an exaggerated image of the film fraternity then we as the media require doing some soul searching. There is a possibility that every time in our hurry to tell a story we have not been fair to our subjects. We have elaborated their quotes to spice up our copies and unknowingly tilted the balance.

Granted there is a dark side to the glamour world. In so many years of my career I have witnessed many moments where I’m left open-mouthed by the savagery of what I witness. But there is another side to show business too, the better side that only an insider can know. Cinema is perhaps the most sensitive medium where multiple talents come together. There is creativity and compassion, warmth and wisdom that an outsider will never know. Inaccessibility prevents identification.

Insecurity is an overwhelming emotion in any creative profession and in the film industry even more so. Film stars are peddlers of emotion. There are more emotional wrecks in the film world than in any other place. Every thing comes in excess here. There is shame and scandal, exhibitionism and eccentricity but there is also diversity and energy, a fatal attraction about the world of cinema that is obsessive.

Once you’ve been a part of it you feel incomplete without it.

Among the many reasons I continue to write books on show business is to present that other side of stardom. The side I have known and grown to love. The experiences have been an integral part of my growing up… It is watching their pain and passion that I have learnt many lessons of life. I have probed into the complex world of these beautiful people, exposed their insecurities and analyzed their contradictions.

When I wrote my first book Salaam Bollywood I worried endlessly if I had crossed the boundary line, revealed too much because I knew so much more. I was conscious of coming on strong on friends in my quest of being objective. There was a conflict between the journalist and the individual and I’m proud I didn’t let down either.

Today, when someone asks me the question, ‘How does it feel to be a film journalist’ I look at the person asking. I wonder if it is worth reacting… Strongly..? I’m not sure.

Bhawana Somaaya