The problem with the right to privacy, the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson once observed, is that “nobody seems to have any very clear idea what it is”. Does that explain why someone entered the hotel room that cricketer Viral Kohli was occupying in Perth — when India was playing against South Africa — and shot and posted a video of it on social media?
As one of the world’s most popular athletes, who is also married to a Bollywood star, it’s not as if Kohli is not familiar with the frequently crazy ways of fans, every one of whom now comes equipped with a smartphone, ready to shoot videos and photos. But it shouldn’t take a paparazzi-besieged celebrity’s outrage to tell us that breaking into their room crosses a line — one that, frankly, few believed needed to be made clear. The video was shared by Kohli on his Instagram account, along with a statement which describes the incident as “fanaticism and absolute invasion of privacy”. “If I cannot have privacy in my own hotel room, then where can I really expect any personal space at all?,” he asks.
Like most celebrities, Kohli recognises the power of social media — the power and agency it gives him to, on the one hand, connect directly with his fans (or at least, serve up that illusion) and, on the other, of allowing them to access only certain portions of his life. So photos of daughter Vamika’s face are off-limits, while candid photos from tours with his teammates, vacation photos with wife Anushka Sharma and workout videos are available for public consumption. These boundaries have been made clear by Sharma and Kohli so frequently that earlier this year, when TV cameras lingered a little too long on Vamika’s face while she and her mother watched Kohli during a match in the India-South Africa series, fans were quick to take the broadcaster to task.
Celebrities have long contended with the pushiness of the media — often coming to quid-pro-quo arrangements with them. Kohli and Sharma, for example, have made a practice of asking the paparazzi to not shoot pictures of Vamika, in exchange for posing for them. But such an arrangement can only be made when you know who it is that will try to violate your boundaries and where you might find them. How can you even hope to guard your privacy when someone whose livelihood doesn’t depend on taking photos of you and your family suddenly takes it into their head to stroll into your hotel room and show the world what that very personal space looks like?
Yet, there is, against all appearances, a silver lining in the shocking invasion of Kohli’s privacy. In the video titled ‘King Kohli’s Hotel Room’, the camera soundlessly pans over a couple of religious idols on a desk, an array of footwear, an open suitcase, a counter cluttered with jars and bottles before, finally, moving to the closet which is opened to reveal a clothes iron. The room is an anonymous mess of personal belongings, a still life of a life lived on the move, offering no real insight of the specific person who was, at that time, occupying it. If it hadn’t been for the title — ‘King Kohli’s Hotel Room’ — and the Team India jerseys in the suitcase, it could have been anyone’s room and that realisation forces every one of us who has watched the video to ask what it might feel like to have our personal space made so public, to have our secret drawers and overstuffed closets presented before the ravenous eyes of the world.
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
