No one seeing the recent hit ‘Jab We Met’ could have remained without a pang for the former couple Kareena and Shahid Kapoor. ‘Wish they had stayed together,’ some would have thought, while others may have wondered, ‘Wonder what happened to make them split after so long?’ Many magazines and TV channels thrive on reports of the relationships within Bollywood – just as the paparazzi and tabloids mint millions on each episode in troubled icon Britney Spears’ life. But all the speculative interest does not serve to bless the individuals and couples it talks about. In fact, its one of the prime factors in putting pressure on Bollywood relationships.

Bollywood may never become the ‘me-first’ divorce capital that Hollywood has been for decades. That’s because our stars still live in India, with its inbuilt support systems for flagging marriages – family and relatives, friends and loyalists who will do anything to keep the couple together. However, its only a matter of time before the break-up/divorce graph begins to soar in Bollywood too, just as it is climbing in society at large.

Celebrities who spend years in the limelight get used to carrying a huge amount of goodwill on their shoulders – the cumulative love, affection, even adoration, of millions of their fans. Shah Rukh Khan and others have often spoken of this amazing weight of goodwill. But even in the celebrity-choked environs of Bollywood, if there is one actor who has stood apart in terms of endearing himself to the larger public, it is Sanjay Dutt, or Munnabhai as he has come to be known in the last few years.

Vinay Pathak’s antics as Bharat Bhushan in Sagar Ballary’s film Bheja Fry, put the actor on par with established Bollywood veterans. His comic forte has been noticed earlier of course, as a veejay, and as a partner of Ranvir Shorey in the hilarious curtain raiser to the matches of the football World Cup last year. But with ‘Bheja Fry’, Vinay has really scored a century. Critics have remarked that he carries the film on his shoulders, and indeed he does.

It is a decidedly surreal feeling. One evening you are sitting on your sofa with the remote and any channel you turn to is showing Aishwarya Rai in Cannes – some are showing file shots of her previous triumphant showings, some are showing her wardrobe disasters at Cannes in the past, and some are showing her current short sojourn, complete with Abhishek Bachchan tucked by her side, pointing out items of interest to him. You can’t help feeling you are trapped in a nightmare from which there is no emerging.

In a world where cross cultural influences are seen in every aspect of life, it seems shocking when a whole society is thrown into a state of chaos just because someone has kissed somebody on stage in public. Let us take the case of actress Shilpa Shetty and actor Richard Gere.

It seems not only strange but bizarre that in a country which has to battle against a host of grave and serious issues, a sizeable portion of the people of this country, and the politicians considered it more important to create uproar about this. Calling it a heinous act of misconduct and a direct insult of Indian values. And the media gave it optimum coverage for days.