Fans need to respect their idol's space

Everyone loves Shah Rukh Khan. But the fans don’t always show their love in the correct way. In a video at the airport earlier this week, an overzealous fan can be seen trying to grab SRK’s hand when his son Aryan quickly intervenes to stop the physical touch.

Sharmila Tagore once told me about a family who came forward to meet her while she was praying at her husband’s grave on their home estate in Pataudi. Sharmila requested them to come back later. Instead of doing the polite thing, they sent her a note excoriating her for being rude to fans and insulting them.

“Remember, it’s the fans who make you,” the incensed family wrote righteously. That isn’t exactly the truth. A lot of other factors make successful actors. But we will let that be.

Jaya Bachchan couldn’t give a damn about what fans think if these fans are thoughtless. If people approach them during a family dinner at a restaurant Jaya politely but firmly tells them to respect their privacy.

“It can get very difficult to please fans. Earlier it used to be just autographs. Now they want pictures. The selfies have to be just right to be posted on social media. So they want to keep clicking until they get the perfect picture. Then they call all their friends and relatives for pictures. It is inconsiderate and cruel,” says veteran actress Asha Parekh.

These are not fans, these are fangs. If you love Shah Rukh Khan please don’t crowd him for that one picture or one squeeze of the hand.

“Oh, it’s not just your hand they want to squeeze, trust me on that,” says Vijay Deverakonda who has been facing a lot of mob frenzy during the past few months. The fans have been playing a great ‘hand’ in Vijay’s success. Vijay feels no amount of security can protect a public figure from mob frenzy.

It is especially bad for female celebrities who get the brunt of touchy-feely fans who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Nowadays fans are everywhere, outside restaurants and airports. They don’t care how you’re looking after flying for 14 hours or how cranky your child is, they just want their pictures.

There was a time when stars like Dharmendra and Manoj Kumar kept their children completely out of the limelight. This was the pre-Instagram era. Now, star kids learn to face prying cameras even before they learn to walk properly. Those poor celebrity progenies struggling to come to terms with their parent’s exceptional adulation.

Fans need to respect the celebrity’s private space. Just because they are seen in the public space it doesn’t mean they are public property. Chances are, Shah Rukh had just deboarded with his children after a long flight. All they wanted was to go home. Like we all do.

So why not leave them alone at airports at least?

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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