Talking Pictures

RAJEEV MASAND

By Hook Or By Book

Why Bollywood stars pretend they love to read

Check out any of those These-Are-A-Few-Of-My-Favourite-Things interviews in film magazines, and chances are that every movie star will say that reading is one of their most passionate hobbies. For some strange reason, actors try desperately to project themselves as well-read souls, when the truth, let’s face it, is quite the opposite.

I always work myself into a frenzy when I see yet another star pretend that they are hooked to books when they are not on the sets. My problem is, I can’t seem to understand why they need to lie about something so inconsequential. I mean, really, they are getting paid to look good and perform well. There’s no brownie points for finishing a book every week. And who are they fooling? Come on, less than a handful of our Bollywood stars are bookworms.

While flipping through some back issues of my own newspaper, I came across an interview with Urmila Matondkar where she said she was addicted to Russian literature (believe me, I’m quoting from the piece). She dodged the journalist’s next question by insisting that she could never remember titles or author names. Convenient, eh?

		Once, I saw Raveena Tandon poring over a book, her spectacles perched neatly on her nose. She was getting teary-eyed over Chicken Soup For The Soul

In Goa once, when the unit broke for lunch, I saw Raveena Tandon poring over a book, her spectacles perched neatly on her nose. I couldn’t resist peeping into her lap and wasn’t terribly surprised to discover that the Mast Mast girl wasn’t savouring the latest Grisham. She was getting teary-eyed over those mushy little anecdotes in a Chicken Soup For The Soul installment. Raveena, entirely unapologetic and unembarrassed, kept warding off fans, insisting that she hated to be interrupted while reading.

Then there’s Sanjay Dutt, whose living room is filled with so many books on Hollywood that if you didn’t know who he was, you might get the impression that this man really knew a whole lot about movies. Screenplays, studio histories, technical journals, filmmakers’ biographies, the works. It was only much later, during a casual conversation with Dutt’s close friend and loyal filmmaker Sanjay Gupta, that I stumbled upon the truth. Apparently, every time Gupta, who is an avid lover of books on Hollywood, chanced upon an interesting book, he picked a second copy for Dutt. And my guess is that Dutt promptly places every new book where it can be easily noticed and perhaps con some unsuspecting visitor at his home to believe that there is more to him that just babes and brawls.

Of course, there’s the whole Mills & Boons brigade who shamelessly flaunt their pointless pages of pulp as if they’ve discovered Shakespeare or Shaw. And then there are those who try. I lent Mahima Chaudhary my copy of Primal Fear, a bestseller I recommend to virtually everyone I meet. Mahima, incidentally, had seen the movie version and had enjoyed it immensely. I suggested that she have a go at the book to realise how much better it was. She did and to her credit, she admitted that the book was light years ahead of the film. Perhaps I was pushing my luck a bit too far when I sent her a copy of the sequel, Show Of Evil, which is also very good. It’s been a couple of months now, and I haven’t heard a word from her about it. Or take Sonali Bendre, who, on more than one occasion, has put Milan Kundera as her favourite author. Except,she thinks, his books are rather like “Mills and Boon”.

That is why I have only the utmost regard for someone like Aamir Khan who says he reads what’s recommended by people whose tastes he trusts. And I admire Salman Khan who confesses bluntly that he doesn’t read because he just doesn’t like to. Don’t expect me to feel any fondness towards Govinda who’s gone on record to say that he’s stopped socialising because he likes to go back to his books in the evening, but won’t mention the latest titles he’s been nosing through "because that’s too personal". What is the big deal, really? The crowds don’t love them because they can quote fluently from Iliad. So when nobody out there cares whether they can read a sentence of English, why do our Bollywood filmis insist on pretending they’re constantly checking out The New York Times bestseller list to decide what to pick up on their next visit to the local bookstore?

Wouldn’t it be so much better if they just dropped their masks and confessed that even they were surprised about reading the latest scoop in Stardust? Or better still, shouldn’t they really make a start by reading those scripts they’re being offered instead of just blindly signing on all the nonsense that comes their way?