He may not have been an Ace of Spades, with the world’s sharpest shooters hot on his heels. But bhangra popstar Daler Mehndi’s arrest in a South Delhi home invites an eerily similar curiosity about the circumstances of his capture. Where had he been cavorting all these days? What was he thinking when the cops swooped into his hideaway? What exactly was humming in his mind? And did that melody drown out the thud as he fell from his tiny pedestal? It’s been a tough week for popstars. Michael Jackson, he of all those record-breaking singles and rock benefits for famine victims, has been charged with child molestation. And now Mehndi, who monopolised the soundtrack of all our weddings and was allegedly running a migration racket on the side, is in for what could be a long incarceration.In turn, their betrayals and their tribulations cast the spotlight towards the expanding realm of popular culture. Actors, singer and sportspersons are the new icons. They feed our ravenous need for spectacle. And as their antics and their art are beamed on television screens 24/7, their utterances become part of the daily discourse — on secularism, on the AIDS timebomb, on wildlife conservation, on everything. Twentysomethings from sindhoor serials are telling us how to vote. Aging dreamgirls are clocking in high attendance in Rajya Sabha, adding glitter to slugfests between career politicians with plans for Bollywood museums. Their former colleagues are swelling up causerati numbers. Retired cricketers are leavening commentaries by dwelling on the national character to account for the India XI’s fluctuating fortunes.What’s one lone popstar then? What’s one phenomenally successful artiste so consumed by avarice that he risked his future to fleece those seeking another life on distant shores? One thing’s for certain, he will never take oath in the hallowed precincts of Parliament, he will never be recruited in an electoral campaign. We may continue to prance around to the strains of ‘Bolo Tara Ra Ra’. Mehndi may continue to bellow, ‘‘Sade naal rahoge to aish karoge’’ (if you stay with me, we will have fun), but we’ll never really believe that, will we?
