Woman of Letters: Butt Naturally

Dear Kim,
It's odd to be writing to someone you've spent almost the last 10 years avoiding.

Thing is Kim, ever since your birth in to public consciousness following the leak of your sex tape with your then bf Ray J, and the mega celeb notoriety that you and your clan of gorgeous siblings achieved with your reality TV shows, your fashion enterprises and your public and social appearances, I kind of chose to pretend you didn't exist.

It's not that I didn't approve of you, or had any worthwhile moral position on what you did — it's just that in the 24X7, 360-degree hyper media world that we live in, I realised that I just wouldn't have the bandwidth to cope with you and your ilk if I wanted to have any semblance of sanity to focus on the things that I wanted to focus on.
Which is why, you and your family, Paris and Perez Hilton, Pere, Miley Cyrus, and the two Justins were all relegated to the back burner. In my mind, they all occupied the same folder, and it was marked: Crazies: not required.

After all, in what way would my life be enhanced, improved, or refined through the antics of a bunch of media savvy, American show biz personalities, most of whose only claim to fame was that they were famous for being famous?
So when Miley twerked, I turned the page; when Beiber decided that a bad boy image would sell more tunes, I looked the other way and when Paris Hilton leaked yet another tape of her plastic and very anodyne antics in bed, I pretended not to notice.

I guess for all my protests about not being judgemental, underlying my studied avoidance of all of you was a hope that if enough people ignored all of you, you would just disappear.

And the world's bandwidth would be freed up to concentrate on people with actual talent and achievements: brilliant writers and artists who were yet to receive the recognition they so richly deserved; scientists who were burning the midnight oil to find cures for incurable diseases and statesman and leaders who could bring peace and prosperity to nations.

Seen in retrospect, my response to you was akin to a child shutting her eyes pretending that there was no elephant in the room, when in fact a far larger, more dangerous, monstrous creature loomed right besides her. Because let's face it, being ignored by one person in faraway Mumbai didn't really affect your fortunes — did it?

Paris Hilton just got bigger and more successful, the Olsen twins are mega tycoons, and it's been reported that Beiber and Timberlake's silhouettes can be seen from the Moon.

And you, of course dear Kim, have just gone and broken the Internet.

Reportedly you did this on a whim, dropping your clothes to show off your suspiciously engineered and reconfigured physical assets for a little known magazine called 'Paper' (The irony that paper thus vanquished its virtual enemy is not lost on anyone-and will be studied by students of media for many years to come).

So in the larger scheme of things, I guess you've won, dear Kim Kardashian. After years of trying to ignore you and your publicity gaining antics, here I am on a Sunday morning, having to address you.

The world has gone crazy, the Internet has been broken and all it took was one naked lady!

What can I say but hat's off to you — since that's the only thing that people like me are prepared to take off.
Congratulations and try not to catch a chill!

Yours sincerely, etc
malavikasmumbai@gmail.com