Hello Mr PM? What did you have for dinner last night?

Of all the things I hate about my job (and there are several: they pay me peanuts, they pay me peanuts, they pay me peanuts) there is one I absolutely abhor. And that’s having to call up random celebrities and asking them embarrassingly personal questions such as what they like to do on their weekends, what’s their favourite cuisine /drink/vacation/brand of shoes, hair gel, shampoo… what kind of music they like listening to while negotiating killing traffic on the road and what’s their partner’s favourite sexual position. Ok, not the last one, but I’m sure we’ll get there some day.

I don’t understand why lifestyle journalists are made to make such fools of themselves. You are expected to just call somebody you don’t know from adam, simper a bit, repeat the name of your newspaper thrice (unless you work for the TOI or for my paper in Calcutta), be told rudely that the person you are calling is busy shooting/partying/attending another fashion show or whatever, asked to call up later – which, in the terrible unfairness of things, you just have to do unless you want to join the unemployed millions. There is nothing in the world as humiliating, ignominious, demeaning and frustrating as having to do this week after fucking week. How I cringe and blush and swear – but I just have to make that call and sound sweet and charming and interested.

Looking at it from the celebrities’ point of view, what must it feel like to be called up in the middle of the afternoon and asked about the ‘turning points’ in their life? (Yes I just did that to another hapless Bollywood type actually Arshad Warsi I quite like the guy think he’s very cool and he was very sweet on the phone but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing the guy was in Goa for heaven’s sake!) Do they get a kick out of it? Do they have a chart for every day of the week, keeping count of how many journalists called to ask inane questions? Do they make fun of us after they’ve been thoroughly sweet and understanding on the phone – turn to their friends and say ‘what suckers’? I suspect they do. I would.

Now I know this has a larger purpose and is not merely a tactic devised by editors to divest young, idealistic, swollen-headed journalists of their egos. Not only do celebrity quotes act as great space fillers and breakers on the pages, you also get to decorate the said pages with pictures of pretty people. And I admit, when I’m reading other magazines and newspapers, my eyes automatically wander to the bit where we have John Abraham expounding on the merits of his latest brand of shoe polish or whatever. I just resent the fact that I should have to do this – that too in the middle of working on a tough story on Bangalore’s retail history and suchlike. I mean, surely I’m above this? But no, even my colleague who’s spent 10 years in the company and gets all these difficult stories no one’s even dreamt of has to stoop to this.

I know these reader fellows might like this stuff (though you won’t get a single soul to admit this, but believe me, they’re lying) but must the deciders of newspaper content submit some of their best talent (ahem) to this kind of ignominy and discomfiture? And whose life would be enriched by knowing that Rina Dhaka likes wearing white cigarette pants embellished with crystals? Why don’t these reader types also get a grip on their lives and stop being so celebrity crazy and take out dharnas and all to make newspapers (at least mine) stop publishing such tripe, especially when most of them keep cribbing all the time about how frivolous the content has become and all that?

P.S. Was just told they don’t have a picture of Arshad Warsi so I’ll have to get someone else. Tell me why I should go on living.