Witerati: When Farah got ‘cheek-y’ with Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran’s visit wasn’t just about Bollywood Who’s Who, but also who had who dancing to their tunes.
The week that was saw much song and dance being made about things. A dance, ‘Ghoomar’ from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Padmavati’, sparked hate, berate and stalling of release date that wasn’t music to many ears.
But amid this cacophony, coming as music to the ears was Brit singing sensation Ed Sheeran’s India show. Though akin to a mild tremor on the sidelines of a major quake rocking B-town, it was a “rock” show second to none.
As keeping a date with the “Shape of You” singer were India’s Who’s Who, the mega-buck event’s million-dollar question was: who had who dancing to their tunes?
Knowing Bollywood, it has such friendly propensity for making the world dance to its tunes that if its dream merchants and dance gurus had their way, Bollywood’s unborn progeny would be made to master dance moves inside starry wombs itself and come out schooled in pirouetting on prenatal dance floors. If its czars of choreography could catch ‘em even younger, B-town’s newborns would arrive into the world delivering ‘thumkas’ a la ‘Sheila ki jawani’ at unsuspecting docs or kickstart their worldly excursion with ‘Bachna ae haseeno’ hip-hop delivered to maternity ward nurses.
So, for Bollywood to make Ed Sheeran dance to its tunes was as much child’s play as getting Hollywood’s Vin Diesel groove to ‘Lungi’ dance with ‘xXx’ co-star Deepika Padukone. Hence, when TV star Nakkul Mehta and anchor Maniesh Paul played “Badri ki dulhania” for Ed at a party by Farah Khan, who also stepped in as choreographer, the global singer sportingly obliged by shaking a leg. But things got tad out of tune when Bollywood got selfie-conscious.
Trust trolls to spoil the party the moment they spotted footage of Farah getting cheek-y with Ed. Farah’s photo planting a peck on the singer’s cheek, “Life is great when @edsheeran likes the shape of me!!’”, had trolls making much song and dance about the gross injustice to the lyrics, perhaps perceived more befitting of sexy Sunny Leone or Kim Kardashian. The troll storm shape-wrecked Farah: “Itni gehrai se toh Shirish Kunder ko bhi gale nahi lagaya hoga!”
Thus, the party-ing shot for Farah a la trolls was: Cheek-mated!
Whilst Bollywood enticed Ed to dance to its tunes, the singer, too, had a species— Sheerios—dancing to his tunes, thanks to whom his concert tickets sold out within 48 minutes flat of booking opening.
When Sheerios shelled out amounts as fancy as the price of a smartphone or Tab for the concert tickets, the “shape” of things to come certainly warranted a show that rocked.
Last but not the least was the third species of Ed’s ‘aam’ admirers who, unlike B-town biggies, couldn’t boast of star power to make him dance to their tunes, nor money power to dance to his tunes at the concert.
Hence, non-concert-ed Sheerios virtually rocked it on Instagram India. Ed extravaganza-inspired memes flew faster on Twitter or WhatsApp than exam notes emanating from ma’ams.
With teenaged offspring playing ‘I’m in love with your body’ full blare within the earshot of perturbed parents tremulously twitching, like Virat Kohli’s fabled middle finger, at the sheer-an explicitness, or with home-grown Sheerios looking more inspired by the sizzling “Shape of You” kind biology and devoting less time to fizzling out pre-board preparations of the schoolbook sort biology -- shape of amoeba, algae or all things anthropological -- the message for many a parent was loud and clear.
Not only had certain progeny’s adolescence arrived, Ed Sheeran had arrived, too!
(The author can be contacted at chetnabanerjee@gmail.com)
Views expressed are personal
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