The Privilege of Ordinary Living

Hardly anyone is not attracted towards the glamour of celebrity lifestyle… millions of followers, a couple of islands, tinted limousines, designer clothes, plush watches and to top it all—picture on the front page of a leading daily, if not Time.

A lot of hard work, a bit of luck and consistent pursuit for excellence have given them so much visibility and many of them do deserve our appreciation. However, I feel most of them pay a huge price for celebrityhood. This reminds me of a statement by Michelle Obama how their kids felt after seeing Obama’s photo in the newspaper- “First day, when you see your father on the front page, it makes you proud. When you see him every day, you feel like you’ve lost him.”

Statements like this hardly surface, but commonsense does suggest, it‘s commonplace.

Let’s have a look what we can do and they can’t:

1. We can visit neighborhood temple any time we wish. Sachin Tendulkar does it at 1:00 am. To make a temple visit he has to sacrifice his night’s sleep.

2. We don’t need security right outside the bedroom and bathroom. They literally have no privacy.

3. Aishwarya Rai cannot plan a child because of her professional commitments. Producers will decide when she is going to be a Mom. Thank God! Most of the ordinary employment offer one to three month of maternity leave.

4. If we give into the temptation of having an affair, no one gives a damn. Tiger Woods lost his billions and now his career is on the tenterhooks.

5. Paparazzi don’t chase us to death, as they did to Princess Diana. Do we really care who’s following us?

6. Our tweets don’t take away the chairmanship. Lalit Modi will spend remaining of his life in disgrace and visiting courts.

7. We can freely express our viewpoint without caring what will my sponsor/party chief thinks. That’s what Amar Singh is doing after being fired from SP. Read his blogs.

8. Mostly, our friendship is defined by love, care and support and we cherish it all through our life. Icons are so obsessed with their own self that the only thing defining their friendship is opportunism. You all know, recent disaster is Farah Khan-SRK break up.

9. If you have a potbelly, so what? Still you can try some Pani Poori or Aloo chat without any thought that someone is going to replace you in the next movie.

10. Now, the most important thing. You can cry, laugh or cheer as you wish. A public figure can’t even express true emotion in public. It’s all about image, my dear! Imagine Tom Cruise, if he is caught crying on camera.

So what if we have a small car and no islands? Three cheers to the ordinary life. Let’s enjoy our commonhood!