An agitated Kareena Kapoor has said she'll do everything to protect her dignity after pictures published in a Mumbai tabloid showed her in an intimate situation with boyfriend Shahid Kapur.
"I'm not this kind of girl. I've an illustrious family name to uphold," she whispered in a choked voice from Ooty where she is shooting for Priyadarshan's new film with Salman Khan.
Kareena wondered what the media in Bollywood is coming to.
"This is so sick. It's not even us. The pictures have been terribly morphed. I'm going to do my best to fight for my dignity."
The words come out in an anguished spurt. Kareena was genuinely distressed by what she sees as a violation of her privacy.
"I believed such mischievous morphing happened only on the Net. Now it has reached the print medium. It's really sad."
The film industry also seems to be worried about the repercussions of the incident.
Said one of Kareena's colleagues and friends: "Today it's her, tomorrow it could be me or any other actress. For Christ's, don't we have the right to enjoy a private meal at a restaurant? And to pay such a heavy price for being celebrity is just not right. This is sheer violation of privacy."
Though there's general dismay about the incident in the film industry, Mid-Day, which carried the pictures, stands by them and has resolved to fight the legal battle to the end.
The incident proves one thing for sure. Paparazzi journalism is here to stay in Bollywood. Earlier, gossip journalism in Bollywood entailed only the harmless tittering of pen pushers who speculated about romance between one and the other star.
The paparazzi were a long way off from penetrating Bollywood, even when television exposes about politicians caught in compromising positions became the order of the day.
But film stars were too respected and loved. All t hat has changed. Television channels stop at nothing to capture on camera the stars in embarrassing situations. Recently, one channel did a Tehelka-like expose with hidden cameras on the alleged flesh trade among Bollywood's starlets.
The story amused rather than shocked the trade. Now, with mobile cameras around, no celebrity is at liberty to let his or hair down without losing the hair completely.
The Kareena case is more complicated since she claims she wasn't at the restaurant where the pictures were taken. The coming days and weeks would make the picture clearer.
