What the Papon controversy taught me about idols

Even as the news breaks I feel a little incredulous. This cannot be. This cannot be him. This cannot be the same man whose masterful rendition of "Ranjish Hi Sahi" I fell in love with and is part of my daily commute listening playlist.

Papon is a modern folk singer with a soulfully rich voice who could do justice to the depth of this old ghazal and yet make it more contemporary enough for a Bollywood crazy concert crowd. Here is a singer who has made folk cool again and made English speaking urbane people sing along to Bihu folk. This controversy cannot be real, I think. It must be a mild kiss on the forehead that the news hungry were sensationalising for nothing, I tell myself.

It's not.

My colleague from television reporting shows me the video. I watch it intently. The star singer's affection for the children seems real. Am I being wilfully blind, I wonder? Am I so much of a fan that I refuse to see the reality or does it actually seem harmless? Have I not been kissed by uncles and grand uncles at that age and thought nothing of it? It depends on the context, no? I ask. My best friend's uncle still kisses me hello when I visit them while my very own kaka (chachaji or father's brother) who has seen me sans nappies as a toddler would faint of embarrassment if I hugged him.

But context they say is for kings. And without the context the optics of it is unfavourable for my music hero. And let alone context. What about consent? Can a child and a minor give consent? Which is something, perhaps he should have taken into consideration.

What is it about our idols and heroes?

It happened with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I remember carrying around the writer's viral post on raising a feminist daughter on my phone, laptop, Kindle like it was my very own feminist bible.

But then she went on to say something as daft as "Postcolonial theory? I don't know what it means. I think it is something that professors made up because they needed to get jobs."

I used to like Woody Allen movies. Even though I never understood why absolutely stunning barely legal young girls would want to date an old geezer like him (as in many of his films they invariably do). You already know what happened with him.

Maybe it will happen to my little seven-month-old son. Those adoring eyes that look up at me from a bowl of pureed khichdi, will realise that mom is not a hero. Mom is just another flawed human.

That is the thing about idols. They all have feet of clay.

Also read: Why the beginning of The Beatles’ end started in India