An Old Post

Jealous?

I guess I am today plain grumpy or infinitely jealous or both. You can choose to ignore this post.

The phrase, ‘nothing succeeds like success’ hasn’t hit me hard for a long time the way it has done today! I read this report where Abhijeet Sawant has published his autobiography. I have nothing against Abhijeet; on the contrary, I am mighty impressed by his talent, especially his stage performance which I had a chance of seeing in Kathmandu last year.

But a book on his life, at this stage, is way too early by any yardstick. He has had only one album release and a couple of film songs. His real struggle in the tough entertainment business has not even started. One hit album doesn’t make a career. Hindi pop industry hasn’t really seen a sustained artiste till date. Even Alisha Chinai and Daler Mehndi, with quite consistently regular releases, couldn’t measure upto their earlier hits. It’s the film songs that are now nourishing their careers. Others like Suneeta Rao, Sweta Shetty, Peenaz Mesani and Sharon Prabhakar are forgotten entities!

There have been many before him who had dream debuts and then fizzled out without making any blip on audience radar. The biggest such example is Kumar Gaurav – what if he had penned an autobiography after the mammoth success of Love Story? He would have looked like a fool decade later. His ‘voice’ Amit Kumar, despite having immense talent, a wonderful voice and a solid lineage, couldn’t really live up to the promise of his initial days. Then, there are more ‘one-hit’ wonders like Rahul Roy, Bhagyashree and Madhoo are other names that I can off-hand recall, and these are not even very back in history!

I am not saying that Sawant will necessarily go that way; but luck and destiny are capracious bed-mates! Instead of a book, he should be concentrating on compiling his next album. Public memory is short, and with the next Indian Idol round the corner, he might just be an over-turned chapter in this business.

I am equally surprised at the publishers who chose to release this book, considering that they are such a finicky lot who don’t touch a new author without using a long barge pole! Reading, unlike cinema and songs, is more erudite and domain of the ‘educated’. In all probabilities, one would imagine that this segment might not like to read about someone who still has a long way to go. Generally, the reading public does not fully overlap the section that would prefer listening to Indi-pop (or Hindi films). But obviously, I am wrong. The publishers are shrewd businessmen, and would have seen potential of good sales to embark on this project.

As I said, I guess I am just plain jealous. He has the book, and I have this blog! Sigh!

An Aside

Speaking of Kumar Gaurav, he seems to have the ‘honorable’ distinction of acting in maximum Hindi films with English titles – Star, Romance, Lovers, All Rounder, Gang and Love Story. Barring the last, all were flops!

Music on as I type this : Shaan & Kailash Kher:Chand Sifarish:Fanaa[04:38]

[composed and posted with ecto]