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.

In a scenario of meandering, mindless plots, woven around over-dressed, conniving women and hapless men in serials that stretch relentlessly over weeks, months and years, Viruddh, the recently launched serial on Sony TV comes as a refreshing surprise.

Breaking away from complicated and hard to digest developments that spillover from one episode into another, Viruddh thankfully, is different. The sets are tastefully rich and have an understated elegance befitting a realistic storyline.