Vivek Oberoi shouldn't feel slighted.....

Dear Vivek,

(To my international readers (Where are you?), Vivek Oberoi is a film actor in the World's second largest film industry, the Bollywood. He has acted in some very good movies, some of which I have seen. He is the son of Suresh Oberoi, who is also an actor, currently doing spiritual programs on national Television. Vivek was once romantically linked to Aishwarya Roy after having done a few awesome commercials with her. You can watch one of them here.)

You and I travelled in the same flight from Bangalore to Mumbai this monday. It was the afternoon Indigo flight which left Bangalore at 12.50.You were sitting in the first row with your beautiful wife Priyanka. You were the first person that I looked at, (except for the excited Air Hostess) as I boarded the aircraft. I did not recognize you when I first saw you. When I looked at you, you were lovingly looking into your wife's eyes and talking animatedly, and your wife was looking at you with that loving affection and half smile that wives bestow on their husbands in the first three years of their marriage.

I did not recognize you first. You were just another handsome dude...

If you had looked at me, you would have seen an expression of resignation and insouciance (I have no idea what this word means). You would have seen the look of  a guy bored with the whole world, scornful of that stupid family who was taking photograph of every plane in the airport (I had done it earlier, so I know that it is stupid), and bestowing a cursory 'good morning' on the Air Hostess, you know, the kind of guy who has travelled a lot by air and want people to know that. 

You must have felt slighted because of my 'I don't care attitude'. As a bollywood actor, you would have at least been entitled to a slight expression of awe and fascination from me and did not get it. You would have rationalized by thinking 'Yet another telugu movie fan, doesn't know that world exist outside of Chiranjeevi'.

I realized that you were Vivek Oberoi, when that stupid family (husband, wife, father, mother....) wanted to have a picture taken with you.

Then we got out of the plane at Mumbai and were waiting for the luggage. I was standing opposite to you.

If you were expecting me to ogle at you, because you were a star, it did not happen. My insouciance was still there, this time mixed with feigned tiredness. I was standing opposite you, determinedly looking at the luggage conveyor, never giving you as much as a cursory look. If you did not feel slighted in the aircraft, you would surely have been slighted now.

You would have seen me, standing there arms akimbo, looking straight at the luggages (like some Indian Yogi standing in a contorted position and looking at the sun during his 'Suryanamaskaram') which were coming, with that look of feigned importance and irritability, trying best not to look at you. 

You were yet another co-passenger for all I cared.

You are an actor, reasonably well-known at that, and you except to be recognized. Especially when all the trolleywallas in the airport recognized you and were happy to serve you. Among all of those fans, there I was, refusing to accept your presence. You had every right to feel slighted. 

But don't be. It has nothing to do with you. Even if you were any other actor, Shahrukh, Salman, Abhishek, Hrithik, Dustin Hoffmann, Schwarzenegger....I would have behaved the same.

(Not Tom Cruise. No sir, no way. I draw the line at Tom Cruise. Have you seen 'A few good men?'....How can you even ask after watching that film. I would go gaga over dear Old Tom. And may be Amitab Bacchan. That is where I draw the line. Not an actor more )

So Vivek, don't feel slighted. It is not you. It is me. I am like that only.

Note: This is an amatuer attempt at humour