A Celebrity Dethroned

The Mafatlals are one of the more prominent business families of India. They preside over a large industrial empire. The wives head part of the businesses and – being fabulously wealthy – are very active on the social celebrity circuit. Recently, one of the wives, 30-something Sheetal Mafatlal, was caught trying to smuggle $100,000 worth of gold and jewels through Indian customs and was arrested.

There is something about celebrities that evokes the Jekyll and Hyde in us common folk. Most of us – including the hypocrites who sanctimoniously declare that money is not important to them – would trade places with them in a flash, if given the opportunity. It is one thing to criticize the lifestyles of the rich and famous; and affect contempt for their artificial vanities like air kissing and party hopping, but almost all of us would grab that very same lifestyle if offered to us.

In short, someone like Sheetal Mafatlal engenders feelings of envy and aspiration in all of us. Conversely, when a socialite like her is brought down – as yesterday when she was arrested for evading customs duties – we feel a quiet satisfaction in the spectacle of one of them getting her comeuppance for the habitual arrogance and condescension displayed towards the less privileged. Let the grande dame know, we say to ourselves, how to feels to muck in the dirt alongside the denizens who have to pay the mortgage and can barely afford health care.

To her credit – and our disappointment – Ms. Mafatlal has not performed true to stereotype by not wailing hysterically or throwing tantrums while in custody. If newspaper reports are to be believed, she has behaved with quiet decorum by not shedding any tears and demanding any special privileges in her jail cell. Apparently, she has not even asked for home food – as many of our pampered politicians are wont to do when they get into trouble. And somehow I don’t think she will follow their sterling example by feigning chest pain.

This has naturally deprived us of the anticipated vicarious thrills, but we have to bear it with equanimity. Given that Mafatlal has engaged one of those high powered lawyers who seem to come as an appendage to all celebrities (who else can afford their astronomical fees?); it is quite possible that by the time this article appears in print, she will be back in her luxurious Altamount Road ( a very posh locality in Bombay) apartment. Still. We should be grateful to her for giving us the satisfaction of realizing – for one brief shining moment - that, at a fundamental level, one of them is no different from one of us.