For all things entertainment, our first instinct is to turn to Bollywood and its glamorous denizens. We may berate them, critique them, scream nepotism at them, but we have to admit, we're also kinda obsessed with them. Fanned by our voyeuristic tendencies, we can scroll through their social media profiles for hours on end, to know what they do, where they go, and when they eat. Thanks to us, these film stars are all too eager now to tell us what goes on in their lives. So much so that they don't even do a double-check on what they're posting anymore. Cases in point: Daisy Shah and Mallika Sherawat.
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Twitter, true to its habit of noticing all that goes unnoticed, pointed out earlier this week that there was something amiss in a post shared by actor-dancer Daisy Shah on Instagram. In it, she could be seen posing with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns in hand - a rather grim read it was from what I remember. Contrarily, Shah was caught mid-laugh.
Sharing the picture, which has since been taken down from Shah's social media, a user There were zero (0) comedy scenes in my copy of 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 pic.twitter.com/ezBSsKtPfW
— Indravadan Sarabhai (@02geeta) September 3, 2020
Daisy Shah Responds To The Viral Tweet
This faux pas elicited a lot of reactions from Twitterati, ranging from dry humour to genuine criticism. A user wrote, "I think we all read some other book by this name. I cried so much reading this one." Another wrote, "This is one of the saddest books. It leaves one disturbed for a few days after reading it. I Probably didn't read it right, it seems."
The tweet went so viral, with over 30,000 likes, that it even managed to reach the person in question. Shah took to Instagram to clarify her stand after realising the blunder she had made, writing, "The laugh was on a joke that was cracked by a friend behind the camera n not for the book... “All I want to say is, the pic was posted coz it was a candid capture n was focused on the smile n happiness that it emitted Since I had only read 4-5 pages then I didn’t know how intense it would get. Will be careful from now on. Sorry."
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Even though the matter is now done and dusted, social media users can't help but draw a connection between this incident and another one that happened earlier this year:
TikTok star and child actor Jannat Zubair had posted a photo of herself on Instagram with The Diary Of A Young Girl, Anne Frank's seminal work, with a glorious smile and coy look on her face. Anyone who has read Anne Frank, or is familiar with its content theme, would know that the Holocaust and the state of Jews during World War II was anything but amusing.
Someone should have told Zubair about it before the camera clicked.
Mallika Sherawat And Her Jumbled Up Chessboard
Bookworms seldom have time to post a picture of themselves with books on social media. And we hope Shah and Zubair will be more careful in the future.
But what's a more unique prop than a book? A chessboard! Actor Mallika Sherawat us how to carefully, cautiously plan our moves:
If you have already spotted what's wrong with the picture, congratulations - you know how to play chess. If you haven't, let me tell you. Sherawat seems to be playing with two queen pieces on both the black and white sides of the board.
Now I don't know which manufacturer is making double pieces of what I find to be the most powerful player on the chessboard, but I would like to purchase a box. Imagine having a queen to protect the king, and another to smite opponents off the board too. There couldn't be an easier way to win.
Except that's not how chess is played. But while this minor oversight on Sherawat's part can be attributed to the meditative concentration she seems to be engrossed in, one can't help but ask - how did the player opposite to Sherawat also not notice this?
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Dear Celebs, Please Double-Check Before Hitting That 'Post' Button
Two pastimes that we, unfortunately, can't pick up from Bollywood are books and chess. It would do us well to turn to platforms that have more expertise in these fields - SheThePeople Book Club on Instagram for instance. You'll find book recommendations for every mood here - even ideal books for when you want to laugh, so you don't commit the faux pas of laughing at gloomy books.
It's great to see that Bollywood stars are so dedicated to their jobs of keeping the audience entertained, that even off-screen, they have found ways to make us smile, despite the pandemic. But we don't want entertainment at the cost of embarrassment for anyone. So dear Bollywood celebs, remember to do a thorough check before hitting that 'Post' button next time.
Views expressed are the author's own.
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