Shah Rukh and the cult of celebrity

Yesterday, before the games at Eden Gardens and the Wankhede demonstrated that Indian fans really are capable of going mad for a team other than the national one, I was surprised to see a huge billboard just off the main road that links Andheri to Juhu in north Mumbai. It was not so much the slogan which caught my eye (“Be scared. Be s**t-scared”), nor the joints-of-ham that passed for Andrew Symonds’s biceps, but the fact that Mumbai was giving space to the Kolkata Knight Riders, a team not merely from out of town but from the other side of the country. So much for generating support for the local side.

My friend, a Mumbai resident, gently suggested that not only was the city more cosmopolitan than other places in India, but that – sorry, Simmo – Shah Rukh Khan’s connections with the Knight Riders makes them a drawcard wherever they travel. (When I return to England, that man will haunt my dreams: he is absolutely everywhere) In the event, there was never any question of Mumbaikars not getting behind the Mumbai Indians during their five-wicket defeat to Bangalore Royal Challengers last night, but the cult of celebrity looms alarmingly large in the Indian Premier League.

Most of the papers I looked at this morning led their front pages with pictures of the various stars and dignitaries who attended the Wankhede. Yes, there was a mention of the farcical floodlight failure in Kolkata and even a comment or two about the cricket. But what the readers wanted, the editors duly provided. The caption under the main snap on the front page of the Mumbai Mirror started with “Film producer Yash Chopra with Nita Ambani; actors Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor; Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun; Mumbai Indians owner Mukesh Ambani with wife Nita,” and continued in a similar vein.

This, then, is the inevitable by-product of the hype. The great, the good and the frankly rather tedious all know that a slice of the IPL action can add a few lakhs on their brand value. The cricket uses the celebs to feel good about itself; the celebs use the cricket to stay in the headlines. It is a symbiosis of a particularly cynical kind.

It can be dangerous too. At Eden Gardens a 38-year-old fan called Mohammed Selim fell from one tier of the stands to another as he leant too far in search of a glimpse of – who else? – Shah Rukh Khan. He was hurt rather than badly injured, but it was tempting to consider what the equivalent injury in county cricket would be. Eighty-year-old slips disc lifting pint of real ale? Pensioner cricks neck sleeping through entire day’s play? Teenager shellshocked by absence of anyone under 50?

OK, I’m being cruel. But the more you immerse yourself in the IPL, the wider your eyes become. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just heard that Shah Rukh Khan is about to appear on five different TV channels at the same time and I have an important decision to make …