Take Two

The Baby Paradox

Madhavankutty Pillai | 08 Dec, 2011

On the difference in public interest levels in the Bachchan baby and Aamir baby

Consider Aishwarya Rai’s career for a moment and you have someone with more flops that hits. Most of her films—Hollywood ones included— have been duds. Consider Abhishek Bachchan’s career for a moment and you have even more flops than his wife. Almost all his films have been duds. Now consider Aamir Khan’s career. Remember hard and you will have to go back a decade to Mangal Pandey for the last time he touched anything that didn’t turn to box-office gold.

Measure for popularity, it is a no-brainer who is the superstar and who has a greater following than Aishwarya and Abhishek put together. But here’s where it gets curious—compare how the world has reacted to the Bachchan baby and the Aamir baby, and you will notice that the former wins hands down. Baby B is still a celebration, with international magazines lining up to offer a big fat sum for a photo. The Broadcast Editors’ Association, which no one, not even journalists, knew existed, suddenly came out with a media fatwa before the Aishwarya delivery on why the event should not be covered. However, for Aamir, perhaps the biggest superstar in the industry, they were as silent as a silent movie.

How does one explain this baby paradox? Part of it is due to the Bachchan family themselves. Their hatred for the media is well known, but they relish engaging with the public. Amitabh was the first to announce, on Twitter, that Aishwarya was pregnant. In Aamir’s case, you didn’t hear a word on it until the baby was born and it is not just because there was surrogacy involved. Kiran Rao was pregnant two years ago and it was still a private non-news event. It was only after the miscarriage that Aamir wrote a few lines on his blog.

The other reason is Aishwarya. She is an enigma in so far as how she manages to remain an enigma despite her commercial record. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: filmmakers, the media, cosmetic companies and Hollywood believe in her exalted status and so she remains there. That calculated turning of aloofness into exclusivity now rubs off onto the daughter. International glossies queue for her photo, while Aamir’s son is not even a memory in the minds of the editors of the Broadcast Editors’ Association.