Bollywood Does Drugs, But Not So Rampantly

 Once I was talking to  a major star who at that time was  about to make his debut  in a film directed by  a very close friend of mine.

This  MSIM (Major Star In The Making) loved to shock. He once told me that he had seen his  mother  kissing with a female friend of hers.  I was understandably shocked.He also told me once that he had  seen  his illustrious grandfather kissing the most  revered artiste of the country. I  was  horrified.

 Later  my filmmaker  friend who was directing this young future superstar ,   told me that  this young chap lied all the time.So should  I have believed him when MSIM  said  to me that he experimented with drugs specially cocaine while studying abroad?  Should I  believe him when he says that his  illustrious  cousins, superstars  in their own right, had also experimented with drugs?

He was  probably not  lying on this. But at the same time it would be taking things too far to believe that the  whole of  the Hindi films industry  is filled  with doped stars and cocaine addicts.I do know that a coterie of  star wives  were  heavily into drugs at these girlie  get-togethers  where men were  not allowed.  Their superstar husbands were only too glad to let them do as they like as long as they kept out of their  husbands’ activities.

Do drugs get passed around  at film parties?  No. Definitely not. But I am aware  a handful of stars do   that  ‘snort’ of thing in privacy. Once at a party  I caught a major star snorting in  the  loo of  a  5-star  hotel. I stared in confusion. He grinned. We made  no  mention  of the incident in any of our subsequent  conversations.

So coming  to the crux. How  rampant is  drug abuse in  Bollywood? In  my opinion not rampant at all. There  are actors who  smoke joints  before they  do an intense shot. I have no  idea if that is a  crime. What I   do know is that  there are far graver crimes  to be dealt with in this  country.why waste  time over   the  smoking habits  of a  handful of  stupid people? It’s their lives. They can do what they  like with it.

And to end on  a note of amusement. Some of  the voices campaigning  against  “druggie  Bollywood”  were  active drug addicts  themselves  in the past.I am reminded  of Anand Bakshi’s  immortal lines of rebuke for  the  moral police: Yaar hamari baat suno aisa  ek insaan chuno jissne paap na kiya ho ja paapi  na ho.

Touche.