Musings
Stardust
in my Eyes
Srabonti
Narmeen Ali
Every month
the magazine salesman comes to my office and triumphantly hands
me a copy of my favourite magazine (other than SWM, of course)
Stardust, at which point I retire to my corner of the cubicle
that all my office colleagues and I share and I thumb through
the entire thing, oohing and aahing over the pictures and skimming
through all the Bollywood gossip. My colleagues, through experience,
have learned to leave me alone during my ten-minute absence
from reality and these days, do not even bat an eyelid. Now,
you may all laugh, but what can I say? I have been bedazzled
by the glamour and clamour of Bollywood's glitteratti. My friends
say I am ridiculous because I have actually started referring
to them on a first name basis -- sometimes even going so far
as to call them by their nicknames, Bebo, Lolo, Ash, Mads. Unfortunately,
this is what happens when you are a self-proclaimed tinsel-town
addict. Call it wishful thinking or pure boredom -- whatever
it may be, I am shamelessly hooked.
In
the midst of my head being in the clouds and my eyes being starred,
the new year came and went. Like most people, I made a few New
Year's resolutions. The first was the customary "I will
make it to Bollywood and become a famous singer, actress and
dancer," resolution that I unfailingly make and unfailingly
break every year. The other was surprisingly uncharacteristic
for my usual fortune and fame frame of mind -- it was to be
a better person in every way I could -- lofty goals, I know.
Being a better person for me included being less catty, less
petty and mean, more forgiving, more patient, less angry at
the world, more generous, less of a pushover, more able to stand
up for myself, stronger, less irritable and most of all happier
with myself. I suppose being in my mid-twenties and suffering
from the infamous quarter-life crisis has jerked me somewhat
shakily into self-awareness. If Bollywood does not work out
for me (God forbid), I might actually have to live with myself
(imagine the horror), instead of getting through all of life's
disappointments and hurts thinking that all the people who have
wronged me will regret it when they see me on the silver screen.
(But it's such a great pick-me-upper!)
So, in trying
to be conscientious about my new year's resolutions, I keep
them in mind whenever I come across a confrontational situation
(most of the time it doesn't help, but at least I'm trying).
For some strange reason, these irritating goals got in the way
while I was catching up on my monthly gossip of my favourite
super stars. I must shamefully admit that when I was reading
Kareena Kapoor's comments about Preity Zinta and Amisha Patel,
I found myself actually thinking about how mean she was and
how ungracious she was being, instead of feeling the usual wicked
bubble of laughter that these tidbits of information usually
induce.
In fact,
to take it a step further, I actually found myself philosophising
about women and their psyche (which is dangerous pastime, even
for us). Before I could stop myself, I came to the conclusion
that women were each other's worst foes. In fact, no wonder
men treat women so badly. Why would they not, after seeing the
way women treat each other? I have always believed in the power
of sisterhood and women supporting each other. However, when
I think about it, who, apart from our very close girlfriends
support us or empathise with us during our hardships? Most women,
contrarily, are even more unsupportive and unnecessarily rub
salt into the wound by gossiping or being nasty.
Dhaka is
definitely no stranger to catty and petty women. In fact, I
sometimes doubt that most women even like each other. And it's
a tradition that gets passed on from generation to generation.
In the aunty generation, you find women gossiping about another
woman's children, her husband, her job or lack thereof, her
lifestyle. In our generation we come across girls being nasty
about another girl's clothes and how tight or loose they are,
her hair, her friends, her mother, her lifestyle. I haven't
really observed the grandmother generation but I'm sure it's
all within the same lines. At the risk of sounding like a complete
traitor to my sex I have to say that women are their own worst
enemies. Not to say that men don't come as a close second, but
really, who expects much from them...they are, after all, the
less intelligent sex. Stereotypically, the only thing that men
have which we inherently do not, is innate practicality and
logic -- the dangerous kind, which is the very thing that makes
most men emotionally challenged at growth and lacking in the
finer things in life. We being the sex that has everything,
including the ability to be logical when we have to (but really,
why bother), are so insecure about ourselves, that we spend
our lives putting other women down to make ourselves feel better.
On the other hand, maybe it doesn't stem from insecurity. Maybe
we are just extremely critical about our own kind, and very
vocal about it at that. Unfortunately, that still doesn't make
it better. Maybe women just lack the ability to co-exist peacefully.
It seems that way sometimes.
And who
would have thought that I got all of this from an article in
Stardust magazine? It's sad that my new year's resolution had
to get in the way of my monthly journey into the Bollywood world
and my conscience (which I didn't realise existed) decided to
become preachy while I was catching up with my favourite stars
and their whereabouts. But if I want to be a happier person,
which is basically the ultimate goal behind all my resolutions,
I should start by not finding faults in other women, and stop
looking for reasons to criticise them -- maybe even get along
with them and be supportive of them at times. At the same time
life does get extremely boring when people are that "holier
than thou." So I guess the next time I read about the ongoing
battle between Kareena and Priety, I think I'll have to allow
myself a good chuckle.
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(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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