Aren8217;t we all Americans now?

But hey, look closely and this laxness about celebritydom seems to have spread. So you have a Bina Ramani turning from most wanted on the party list to most wanted for JessicaLal8217;s murder and then back again as bleeding heart charity lady. Or the Ansals from being prime accused in the Uphaar fire to being the creators of the 8220;most complete shopping experience8221;. Or even Sanjeev Nanda, who can come back from being a media monster to being media victim, from fratboy to jailbrat.

It has something to do with short memories. It also has something to do with the notion of celebrity. In India, it is circumscribed both by geography and hierarchy. If you8217;re in Delhi or Mumbai, more specifically south of south Delhi or Mumbai, you have a better chance of being dubbed a celebrity. If you can write a book, throw a party to launch it, or have a theme party and invite enough social columnists, you are guaranteed space in city supplements with column inches to rival any halfway decent PR8217;s effort. If that fails, make sure you at least get on their Not Wanted list. Now that Delhi and Mumbai have written about, photographed and talked on television to all the 100 8220;people who matter8221;, it8217;sfashionable to trash them.

Because that8217;s so much easier than actually looking for the next 100 celebrities heart surgeons who are not married to TV journalists, industrialists who don8217;t sport cigars, cricketers who don8217;t play the field in a way completely unrelated to the game, and writers who don8217;t come with entourages, among which a personal documentary filmmaker is essential.

Or even the next 1,000 celebrities. You know the people who don8217;t watch Star News, who don8217;t go to farmhouse parties, who don8217;t get to anchor programmes, who don8217;t sit in the front row of nangu-pangu fashion shows, who don8217;t suddenly discover the creative side to their actress/model public self and want to make candles or paint on canvases. But in this tightly defined circle of celebrity, you can have many lives. Former cricketers can turn suitings models, former prime ministers can end up as poets-cum-artists, former artists can end up as professional Madhuri Dixit fans and jubilee actors can become elder statesmen.

The nextstep is the Vanity Fairisation of politics and cinema. Where people like the late Pamela Harriman pose no problem: for her career encapsulates so beautifully the essence of modern fame, power-lunching courtesan becomes Washington D.C. power-broker. Where Beltway meets Beverly Hills and rubs shoulders occasionally with a palazzo-owning down-at-heel count. It8217;s already happening with a new breed of telegenic politicians 8212; with their cameo appearances at chatterati dos and their eagerness to be quoted on all manner of subjects from their dogs to their daughters, they are quickly becoming true blue celebrities.

We8217;re not quite at the point where Bob Dole will confess to having tested Viagra and Donald Trump, with more alimonies than he has bank accounts, can actually think of running for president, but we are getting there: a former beauty queen turned farmhouse wife like Naina Balsaver can pitch to become an MP, a maker of unfinished films and designer of unaffordable garments like Muzaffar Ali can be aperennial also ran in high testosterone contests, and a dubious doctorate like Mamata Banerjee can become a minister.

Perhaps it is because as Rajesh Pilot put it so gently recently, the press in India has been very kind to politicians. For kind, substitute lazy.