Giggling While Googling Ian McKellan

Sir Ian McKellan was in town.A lot of the Bollywood  actors who aspired to be fans of the mighty British performing behemoth Sir Ian McKellan googled to get a grip on the man’s immense achievements.

One actress, known to be forthright admitted she had little knowledge of  Sir Ian or Shakespeare.

Oh by the way ,Sir Ian was at the MAMI festival to speak on the 400^th birth anniversary of Shakespeare.

The right person to converse with Sir Ian would have been Vishal Bhardwaj or Shekhar Kapoor. They have made films from Shakespearean material .Vishal’s Maqbool,  Omkara and Haidar were adapted from Shakespeare. Shekhar’s Elizabeth was set in the Shakespearean times and he has just done the pilot of a Shakespearean bio-series.

Or Irrfan who was magnificent as Vishal Bhardwaj’s Macbeth in Maqbool.Why nor Irrfan in conversation with Sir Ian?

The venue was brimming over with glamorous actresses trying to sound knowledgable on Shaekespeare and Sir Ian.

Sonam , in all her prettified wisdom, was heard expressing the opinion that  Shakespeare didn’t really write terrific female characters except Portia in The Merchant Of Venice.

Really, Sonam?  How about Lady Macbeth? Next time, google harder.

Kangana tried to sound knowledgeable on Shakespeare , saying she is familiar with his writings.

Right , then. I am sure Kangana didn’t have much  fun listening to Aamir and Sir Ian talk about Shakespeare.

Aamir’s connection to Shakespeare is at the most, emotional. I don’t know if he googled on both Sir Ian or Shakespeare. In any case the interview was not about Shakespeare . It was about gay sex. So maybe Shakespeare was gay. Hmmm?

Sir Ian spoke freely and humorously about his sexual orientation and how it affected his work specially when it came to doing intimate scenes with women.He also wagged a disapproving finger at our Article 377 .When a journalist wondered what he would like to do with Aamir after the interview ,Sir Ian wondered if there was any gay club nearby they could go to.

Aamir giggled hard. But we look forward to similar sessions with gay actors and filmmakers from India. The closet is getting stiflingly crowded.