Abuse Modi and Ameesha Patel and become a Twitter celeb
Who wants publicity? Everybody. Who seeks publicity. Not everybody. In other words, everybody wants publicity but not everybody goes out of the way to seek it. Except Ameesha Patel (the girl next door who played the leading lady in yesteryear's blockbuster Kaho Na Pyaar Hai) and Kushal Tandon (contestant of Bigg Boss 7).
Nowadays it has become easy for these out of work film or television actors to seek publicity. The credit for this recurring phenomenon goes to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The hunger for seeking publicity masquerades as madness that knows method to garner free publicity. There's a perfect recipe which many actors have tried and achieved success.
To seek publicity the first step is to write a tweet that attacks the prime minister Narendra Modi, holding him or his silence responsible for whatever bad that is happening in our country. Don't you want to criticise the PM? Don't worry. Pick up a Twitter fight with the fellow actor, director, producer, music composer, singer or the familiar TV news anchor. The person with whom you're picking up a fight must be someone famous.
Wait for the tweet or tweets to go viral and the other person to respond. As soon as either tweets go viral or the other person responds, lo and behold a massive controversy is cooked and ready to be served on a platter to the hungry masses that will devour it with both hands. The benefit for the warring parties are truckload of new followers and unlimited free publicity on both social media and TV for a couple of hours. We all have come to love our fifteen seconds of fame, haven't we?
Coming to the latest Twitter fight between Ameesha Patel and Kushal Tandon, there is something that doesn't quite meet the eye. The script is familiar. Kushal Tandon who was languishing in obscurity tweeted in some alien language that resembled English. His grouse was Ameesha Patel hadn't bothered to stand up out of respect when the national anthem was being played at a cinema hall.
Everybody knows how emotive the issue of patriotism could turn out to be. Whenever the national anthem is being played, we all are supposed to stand up out of respect. Kushal Tandon's tweet went viral in the blink of an eye. Since the issue involved the question of the love for the country, Ameesha Patel found herself into a tight corner. She chose to fight her way out of it by clarifying on Twitter that she was unable to stand up when the national anthem was being played thanks to the monthly problem that girls suffer from every month.
Along the way she roundly abused Kushal Tandon and accused him of invading her privacy. Her strategy was to attack the gallantry of every man worth his salt and show Kushal Tandon in poor light who doesn't have a clue of what women go through. Both the warring parties were making valid points. Needless to say, the fallout of this Twitter spat was entertainment for those who follow them and free publicity for both the forgotten faces.
Didn't they get a perfect deal? The followers who are also known as tweeple got something new to talk about. Both Ameesha and Kushal got a chance to claim the high moral ground over emotive issues like patriotism and gallantry. Fair enough. What will happen now? Will this childish scuffle help them revive their respective careers? After some time in this age of 140 characters with rapidly shrinking attention spans the furore will die down and they both are likely to kiss and make up, aren't they?
Yes, this is probably going to happen since the whole episode seems stage managed or fixed for publicity. They both might have been advised by their well-wishers to have a go at each other on Twitter to get back into the limelight. The tendency to slug it out before the lustily cheering crowd dates back to the Stone Age. Who doesn't love a good fight? Especially when the fighters happen to be from the tinsel town, so many juicy details are likely to tumble out of the closet much to the delight of a commoner who gets a chance to think aloud that oh they too are just like us.
The whole concept of Twitter fight between celebs sounds like a well-packaged deal in which full on entertainment is hundred percent guaranteed to their followers. The celebs in question or in fighting mode receive a heavy dose of free publicity to infuse a fresh lease of life into their defunct careers. Isn't it a win-win scenario?
Be that as it may, these celebs are free to indulge themselves in Twitter fights as much as they like. It is an in-thing at the moment. You haven't arrived if you haven't given as good as you got on Twitter. But to convey that intensity they can consider hiring a decent English tutor who will help them compose hate tweets with perfect swear words in fluent English.
On a serious note, when someone as popular as Ameesha Patel (the latest heart throb of the nation and the bubbly girl next door were few of the phrases used to describe her arrival on the celluloid fifteen years ago) has to resort to such cheap gimmick of picking up a Twitter fight with a nobody like Kushal Tandon to stay afloat, you know the life is tough and a celeb's popularity is something to be never taken for granted. This morbid hunger for publicity is to be pitied rather than admired as it smacks of desperate measures to reclaim the past glory that has slipped through fingers.