There’s nothing more unnerving than to be told, “Lucky you, imagine you get paid to see the movies. What fun! And you must be going to all the parties, hobnobbing with Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and all. Are they still secretly

dating?” My response to that is either a non-committal Mona Lisa smile or a scowl that would scare the daylights out of Adolf Hitler. Achtung baby, buzz off, my scowl states savagely.
Truly, there’s a misconception that film journos recline on extra-foamy seats, sip Dom Perignon and nibble caviar canapes. It is rumoured that a diamond-encrusted red carpet is rolled out for film reviewers. Nothing of the sort. In fact, the scene has altered so dramatically that those who dare to criticise any film in the charge of a Public R company — with such delectable names as Spice, Universal, Raindrop and Teardrops — are blacklisted as if they were card-carrying communists in the era of uber capitalism.
To be fair, Spice is quite nice actually. It’s those who’re not professional but childishly personal, who delude themselves that a reviewer can’t afford to buy himself a multiplex ticket of `300 (add `200 for colas and corn). These delusionists exhibit their ‘power’, in the manner of valets who won’t let you enter a star’s vanity van without double-checking your full name, address, date of birth, and intent of visit.
Now, now, am I getting touchy? Is it because I no longer belong 24x7 to the barbed wire beat? Not really, it’s just to point out that there’s no free show, or a hearty party in town. Write an unstarry review, and experience a blockade ahead. Don’t write about which celebrity released which music CD, which has sold a gazillion copies even before it hit the music shops, and no byte for the rest of your life from Salman Khan, Kat Kaif or even Rakhi Sawant, Dolly Bindra for you.
Quite horribly, I saw a woman critic being evicted from a press show of Vishal Bharadwaj’s Kaminey, because the PR woman didn’t like what she had written about the film’s production house. No one protested, including myself, because a singular protest means zilch, and a samosa subtracted from the two customarily handed to you for the intermission refreshment. It’s not as if that the evicted one would have ever raised a peep for Me, Y or Z either, so jaane bhi do yaaron. And yet another woman editor was told to buzz off from the music launch of Mani Ratnam’s Raavan because Abhishek Bachchan had issues with her. He wouldn’t attend till she skedaddled. She did.
At the risk of sounding like a resident of Jurassic Park, let me tell you it was never ever quite like this. Press shows were conducted with dignity by Bollywood’s only legendary PR: V.P. Sathe, the same stalwart who had collaborated on the scripts of Raj Kapoor. He believed in write and let write. If he disagreed with a review, he kept his opinion to himself. Since he organised 99 per cent of the shows, life was beautiful.
The press show repasts were samosas, of course, quite wooden, and served on picnic paper plates by a caterer called Lakdawalla. On pointing out this delicious morsel of irony in a column, Lakdawalla was vastly amused, shabashing me at the next show, “Boss, you’re correct. Now samosas are improved, taste and tell.” They had improved.
Today, if you’re re-re-reminded that the press show will start punctually, on the dot, it doesn’t, and you whimper, “Whyyyyyyyy?”, you become a Pran or Amrish Puri in the PR’s blackest book. Bloody troublemaker, their eye lingo conveys, as you skulk out of the show way past your snoring hour.
So why attend these press shows and a launch or two, once in a blueish moon? Not because they’re free or fun, but because I want to squirm in my seat, scowl and majorly miss V.P. Sathe.