Suresh Menon: playing the fame game

In a discussion about professions that no longer exist or will soon die out, the following were mentioned: travel agent, postman, snake charmer (except in some pockets where they are necessary to lend substance to the Indian cliché for those travellers who might otherwise go back to their home countries disappointed at not having seen the ‘real India’), and door-to-door salesman.

There are new professions too – and not all of them obvious. At a gathering recently, someone came up to say hello. ‘I am a writer,’ I said with the embarrassed air with which one says these things, ‘What do you do?’

‘I am a celebrity,’ he replied. I didn’t know where to look. When did celebrityhood become a standalone profession? Real celebrities don’t introduce themselves like that. They say they are actors or sportsmen or politicians or serial killers – well known for their fame or notoriety in different fields. But what does a standalone celebrity do?

I checked. ‘Oh, they go from party to party introducing themselves as celebrities in the hope that others will think of them as celebrities,’ said one friend. ‘They photobomb – no, they insinuate themselves into – pictures that appear in newspapers, so people recognise them without quite remembering where they have seen their faces,’ said another.

This turns the natural process on its head. Unlike, say, an actor who becomes famous and is then photographed constantly, a ‘celebrity’ gets himself into photographs and then uses those to prove his credentials as a ‘celebrity’. I am told some even use that to get jobs as clerks or assistants in some firms.

Celebrityhood without achievement is a cool thing. No need to put in hours every day practising a tennis serve or projecting your voice. Far easier to declare yourself a celebrity and join the front of queues, demand special seating in aircrafts and music concerts, and be invited to air your opinion on television.

There is no intelligent response to that introduction. You could say, ‘What a coincidence, so am I’. Or you could ask, ‘What kind of a ’brity?’

But I doubt if this so-called celebrity would get it.