The price of fame …

Brian Tracy has nine questions that Prof Kaipa had asked us during our last term at ISB. The last two questions were very important – if a genie granted you a wish and you can’t fail, what is the one thing you would want to achieve and then the next question is what would you give up for that grand dream … Very often in life, we never ask the second question, when we get the first one. All of us have the genie at our beck and call, it’s called a wish and everything you wish for is usually granted, when it is not granted it simply means it wasn’t meant for us or we didn’t wish for it deeply enough. The Universe is the genie 🙂

We ask for wealth, but do not want to give up sleep, sometimes health, sometimes relationships, sometimes integrity to earn huge wealth. We ask for health, but do not want to give up eating every junk food we can lay our hands on, every pastry, every pizza, every slab of cheese and no gym is good enough ! We want a superstar for a spouse, but do not want to give up on our insecurities, or put up with their vanity or transgressions…. The one thing that many of us want is fame, to be known, but fame extracts a huge price, be ready to give up your privacy, be ready to be hounded in happiness and in grief, be ready to be questioned relentlessly when you do right or wrong. The glare of the spotlight is alluring, but the shadow it casts hides the huge price it extracts.

Two celebrity deaths disturbed me … The most recent one is that of Sunanda Pushkar and last year Jiah Khan. Beautiful women both, with looks to die for, with seemingly happy lives because they were well known, supposedly were rich enough and were envied. Jiah got to act with Amitabh Bachan and Sunanda was married to Shashi Tharoor. Sunanda’s death was so sudden, that I didn’t believe it when it popped up on the news. I was reading a book and suddenly this news popped up and just earlier in the day, I had seen the newspaper article where Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda had given a statement that they were happily married. For a few days before that the whole personal issue of Shashi Tharoor’s alleged affair with a Pakistani lady was in the limelight. I was disturbed with that because marriage is such a private relationship and to have the difficulties with that relationship discussed in public is a no-no. But that is the price fame extracts from you …. It was heart wrenching to see a vivacious, beautiful woman like Sunanda, dying all alone, due to whatever reason, but just after her whole private life was laid open for strangers to speculate and pass judgement on :(:( Jiah Khan, took the extreme step of suicide, maybe because a particular relationship was not working out or because of something else, but deciding to end your life ? Everything she did was talked about, the spotlight kept following her, the failures magnified, her tears unshed, her aches untold – what a heavy price to pay !

So watch what you ask the genie for, and be ready to pay the price, for nothing comes free in this world. Nothing to be scared of, but everything we want can be ours, just ensure you are ready to barter something that you have right now for what you want. It also is important therefore, to know what you won’t give up. The things that are so valuable to you, that you won’t give them up, figure those out. Anytime the wish you want fulfilled needs one of your most valued possessions as a price, atleast you would know, that you can refuse the wish.

RIP Sunanda and Jiah…