For an outspoken starlet who loves her plastic surgeon and keeps the media waiting for two hours, Rakhi Sawant — pouting, glamorous, crass, apologetic — is a bloody good sport.
At a press conference in Delhi to announce the launch of a comedy show about bizarre household anecdotes (Gajab Desh Ki Ajab Kahaniyaan, UTV), she fielded questions with — one can’t call it ‘grace’ — a panache she has often been associated with.
Reporters have been flown in for the press conference from Bhopal, Indore, Mumbai. Why was she two hours late, they ask, annoyed. Her sari, she says, got stolen. This is her excuse. She’s smiling, hair perfect, make up perfect, figure perfect.
Everyone laughs. Someone from the back asks her if she thinks she’s a bharitya nari, what with that snug blouse and low waist. She thrusts her torso out and she dares you —is anything uncovered? Huh?! Kuch dikh raha hai aapko? Then smiles.
Catcalls from the back of the hall.
Sawant knows her audience, the reporters, the cameramen asking her to pose ‘thoda aise side se’. She knows what they want. She invented the gallery she plays to, and still manages an innocence, a lack of self-consciousness in her raunchy replies.
The questions were bizarre, unprofessional. Which man does she want? Ramdev. A flurry of priceless quotes: “Apke liye Baba honge, mere woh swami hain”. She’s a fan of his kapalbharti technique — “Woh jo andar bahar andar bahar kartein hain — I love it!” More hooting.
When will she visit Bihar, asks a Patna correspondent. When Nitish invites me, she says. All answers are pat-pat. “Laloo had invited me. I met his whole family, his wife, his kids.”
What about social media? “Of course main Twitter par hoon!” Why not active? Time to show claws: “Why? It’s not like the others do it themselves. Everyone has PR people. I want to be original.”
Some man tries to get a bit cordial with her. A bodyguard slaps his wrist. She smiles even then. Bechara. Get in line. Aapki bhi baari ayegi. Camera phones are out in hordes. Some taking strategic top angle shots. She’s sitting on a throne, quite the queen B. Everyone else is saying, “Rakhi! Rakhi! Rakhi ji! Ma’am!”
Ma’am trashes arch rival Mallika Sherawhat. “Usko abroad se ab phenk diya hai woh Jackie Chan Whacky Chan ne” — “She’s been thrown out from abroad by that Jackie Chan or whatever he is.”
She also says she has no interest in Bollywood. Then yells, I am original! I am glamorous! She keeps saying this. And the way she keeps her audience in splits, poses for pictures, replies when asked anything, everything — it all suggests that despite the plastic and silicon (and not least of all for picking up a 3,000-calorie almond biscotti from the refreshment counter on her way out), she is a little more real than her tinsel town peers.
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