Little Birdies
All that mindless partying—the stuff that our Page 3 is made of—did seem to havea higher purpose. It’s got a nod of approval from the haughty literary world and twobooks on the celeb circus are soon to hit the stands. There’s one by Kanika Gahlaut,an Indian Express staffer whose unenviable beat it was to hobnob with certifiedPage 3 artistes. Tentatively called Among the Chatterati (Penguin; expected inMarch-April), it’s an extension of what many of her acquaintances call"non-serious journalism". Another one obsessing over Page 3 foibles isPerfect Relations’ head Dilip Cherian’s newspaper columnist wife, Devi Cherian.Says she: "Page 3 (Roli Books; out later this month) is a coffeetabler that shows theparty tricks people employ to wrangle their 15 minutes of fame." In fact, the Page 3ball is a bit like being held captive at one of Jay Gatsby’s joyless soirees. Justswap present-day New Delhi with New York City of the 1920s. Its Long Island with theCapital’s new-money suburbs and socially-mobile farmhouses. The pathologicalshoulder-rubbing, the exhaustive air-kissing, the climbing on ladders of big names andassociations, the shameless mongering of ‘personal effects’ and talents, thesartorial coups, they all ring a bell. "It’s tempting to take a look at what itmeans to be part of this whole charade. The power play, the connections trap, thevelvet-gloved I-know-your-Editor threats, the who’s-with-who pictures, thesugar-coated exchanges of gossip, the deep-rooted hyposcrisy, it could well be anotherplanet," says Gahlaut. And before you think that’s cakewalk, also consider thatshe’s been manhandled, threatened on the phone and lobbied against because she wroteand spoke her mind.
