Almost Famous

January 5, 2008

As an American in India, I now know how famous people must feel. Everywhere I go I'm besieged by people wanting to talk to me. If I stand in one place for more than a couple seconds, people ask me where I'm from. Finding I'm from America, they are incredibly impressed and tell me what a wonderful place I'm from as if congratulating me on my last movie. I can go no where without drawing stares and most people want to take pictures with me to show their friends. I retreat to the remote beaches (like so many stars) wanting to get away from it all and even here I have people asking to take my picture, shaking hands or putting my arms around them as if we are long lost friends. If the conversation lingers, the fans might even broach the nirvanic invite to a family dinner or out to a club, as if we might really become good friends and then... who knows? The possibilities then are limitless.

It's no different here I realize. People crave that same kind of association with fame and the upper crust. We too have our autograph seekers; people so proud to have posed in photographs with famous people they mount them on their walls as if showing off good friends. We too have that secret fantasy that maybe if we impressed George Clooney just a little in a chance meeting, he'll want to come home with us to dinner or out to a club where we'll drink and smoke together and then... who knows? The possibilities then are limitless.