Less Koffee, more intimacy

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Recently, Karan Johar remarked in an interview with the film critic Anupama Chopra on the Film Companion channel, that stardom no longer exists. He defined stardom as an inherent magnetism and mystique, so amplified, that it fills the big screen, and fills the largest room. He diagnosed the cause as easy access of social media that renders artistes ordinary and takes away the aura of stardom. "I'm not saying it's good or bad, but that's how it is," he said, suggesting that stardom might be an irretrievable part of the past, like youth.

Episode one of Koffee with Karan, seemed to confirm this thesis. It featured Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, a casting almost as full of frisson as the casting of Silsila. I mean here are two people married to two ex-lovers. Alas, the episode was a placid pool without undercurrents. The two share a heartwarming friendship, how nice. Alia nattered on about her wedding. How sweet, how sanskari. Ranveer Singh briefly enlivened the proceedings with his marvellous mimicry of Hrithik Roshan and others, his loudness the right volume for entertainment. There were endless shots of them all laughing, in lieu of actual hilarious moments - a laugh track in search of a sitcom.

What KJo didn't say, but did communicate, about stardom, was what stars fill us, the audience, with. The star reveals themselves to us and we reveal ourselves to ourselves. They fill us with pleasure, desire and emotion. This immense emotional sensuality disconnects us for some time from our everyday realities and brings us breathtakingly close to our inner desires. That's intimacy which fills us with longing and longing sometimes, leads to the adventurous choice away from convention, makes us feel more alive. A lot of queer people can testify to this journey, right?

The lack of stardom on screen is of a piece with the lack of intimacy that besets all our screens. People feel ennui at dating apps and complain that love no longer exists. Influencers make reels parodying influencers, as if forecasting their own demise. That's because connections happens less for its own self, more for some third party purpose. Stars speak of themselves primarily for brand building and marketing. We consume, without feeling joy or love, and so, feel contempt for them and ourselves.

In a parallel cultural debate, someone mentioned how Indians have an irreverent relationship with our gods and so, even abuse them at times. This is not irreverence, but intimacy. Love gives you a claim, a right to express anger and be heard. But, just as stars no longer function in a private bond of pleasure with the audience, so gods are rarely invoked to flood us with spiritual intimacy with ourselves that might lead us down unexpected, better roads. More frequently, they are used as instruments in the contest of left and right, acts of war, not love.

The early minutes of the KwK premiere had an unintentional moment of authenticity, where KJo looked infinitely bored for two seconds, at the cycle of tedium pretending to be fun content. The answer to this boredom lay in his own interview though, where his candour, insights and emotional communication, created a fleeting but genuine intimacy with us, the audience. Liberation from ennui and disconnection might come if we can declare #BoreMatKarYaar, to once again dance, implausibly but intimately, among the stars.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com