Wake up call*

The greatness of man is in how he treats the little man. That is how one of my friends signs off her emails. Over the weekend, while at a relative's birthday family dinner, KB was telling of his misadventures with the stars of the celluloid kind. It was a real eye-opener to my children, who like all teenagers at their age, were mesmerised by the glitz and razzmatazz of the movie stars and the red carpet. No thanks to MTV and E!TV.
A few Kollywood actors were in town to launch the audio of the soundtrack of the movie, 'Enthiran' (Robot), starring Rajnikanth (the superstar) and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.  The entourage also included A.R. Rahman, Shreya, Vadivello and others, were in Putrajaya and Astro was their official local sponsor. KB, being the logistics manager in Astro was given the unenviable task of ferrying and babysitting the stars.
Aishwarya Rai, the dream girl for many was a real pain for the carers for they had to put up with all her tantrums! First, she was irritated upon arrival when her favourite make-up bag went missing. It was later located and given to her 2 hours later. She was also annoyed when people were snapping pictures of her and was forever shunning from people (i.e. fans) who appear barging and closing down on her to catch a better glimpse of her. She strictly gave orders to the many helpers assigned to her that she would only deal and communicate to the selected one of them and no one else.
At the actual event, she refused to walk on the red carpet (which was the pinnacle of any media event) as it was not in her contract. She arrived fashionably half an hour late for the function. Because of her antics, other up and coming actors missed their golden opportunity to glide on the red carpet.By the way, when Shahrukh Khan was here in KL some time ago, he was 4 hours late!
Once Rai was on stage, she metamorphosed into such a jovial, loveable, bubbly, cordial, charming personality with so much praise for Malaysians for being such fantastic hosts whilst expressing her happiness being here. Now, we know why she is such a well-liked actress with many blind followers and why many actors go into politics. Politicking? Acting? What's the difference?

Rameshwaram Sea Bridge

In the course of the conversation, KB praised A.R. Rahman who was with a so down-to-earth attitude, easily mingling with the 'low lives' and posing with the mere mortals. This...coming from an Oscar winner is truly amazing. That reminds me of another man from Rameshwaram - son of a fisherman who later became a rocket scientist albeit the early poverty, launched the first Indian rocket, became the President of India and left the President's House with the same suitcase that he came with. He is a Muslim who is a vegetarian, a poet, a bachelor and a true icon of modern India.- A. P.J. Kalam. Recently he was randomly chosen to undergo a full customs check at an airport in the US. He willingly subjected himself to be examined without raising any melee. Of course, there was a lot of international uproar after this event with India demanding an apology. In reply, he just said that the workers were just doing their job. And who can forget Mr Shahrukh Khan's tantrum on being chosen to do the same?

APJ Kalam

Indeed, the greatness of a man is in how he treats the little man!

This conversation was a real wake up call for my kids who were not convinced by our (wifey and I) 'preaching' all this while...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkQ0OJ5Byls&feature=related