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ShareThe prolonged soap opera of our tweeting minister got me thinking about the fickle ways of icon-worshippers. Now hold on, this column is not going to be about the peripatetic Mr Shashi Tharoor, who, alas, is so out of sync with the desi zeitgeist that he puts his foot in his mouth every time he opens it.
Too much silly newsprint about l' affaire Tharoor has flowed out, nationwide. It's more about us -- we, the people -- who are so eager to create larger-than-life figures only to destroy them not too long after, when we get disillusioned, or just bored. And when the next superman-aspirant comes along.
Ever since Tharoor became a minister hardly a day goes by when he is not releasing a book, taking part in a debate, judging one or being a chief guest somewhere. The thinking woman's crumpet is everywhere. Sometimes you even wonder if the author-bureaucrat-politician has a doppelganger (yes with the same dimpled chin and grey eyes) sharing his burden -- and adulation.
You would think that there is nobody else around to cut all those metaphorical ribbons. And, to be the tipping point-guest at socialite evenings. Intellectual darlings are in short supply: Sunil Khilnani, are you listening? Perhaps it's time for you to come home with your idea of India tucked under your arm. It was all going so well for Tharoor until this rattling austerity bandwagon trundled up...
This is the age of instant iconisation. Perhaps more visible in the worlds of sport, cinema and increasingly on the small screen. Politicians have been shunted to the wings, their halos now irrevocably tarnished. Icons today are churned out on a 24/7 assembly line by our media machinery (old and new).
Now, the problem with anything instant is the easy-come-easy-go syndrome. Everything that goes up must come down, yes, but it's now coming down almost as soon as it gets up there. Sachin Tendulkar stayed proud and tall on his pedestal for a while before the brick bats started to target even him. But subsequent gods of our playing fields have been on increasingly slippery ground, one LBW and the heroes become zeroes.
The silver screen isn't called the dream factory for nothing: fabricating icons is a vital part of its raison d'etre. Amitabh Bachchan stood tall and solitary, a colossus for a decade and a half. The actor was abstracted into an icon, a concept: even Big B's voice acquired iconic status, the voice from some high mountain top.
Whittling him down to human dimensions has been on for a while. Shah Rukh Khan, who flamboyantly flung the Shehenshah of Bollywood over his shoulders, now finds himself in the limbo that lies between being revered and mocked.It's not that we no longer need icons. We still need to project our fantasies and aspirations on to the faces (and increasingly "hot" bods) of our stars: they are the mirrors in which we like to see ourselves.
In the age of reality television and a million channels we want to be our own icons. A democratic manthan is taking place: we can now be queens and kings for the day. The spotlight shines brightly, briefly, and moves on. As for haloes, they used to emanate from within -- after all kinds of spiritual or secular tapasyas. Today, we have stick-on haloes.
Perhaps the gods of Bollywood and cricket should not come down from Mount Olympus so often -- and certainly not appear in every second ad. Would Madhubala still be the icon she is had she touted fairness creams or cream potato chips in advertisements? I think not: icons need to be wrapped in a little enigma. It saddened me to see a maestro like Amjad Ali Khan walk the ramp for a fashion show in Kolkata.
Icons first came into being for the deities, followed soon by iconoclasts. Icons no longer have much to do with religion -- but then that is another story.
