It's so easy to become a celeb. You merely have to get a pic in the paper --any paper, any page-- only once and you earn the right to strut around town with the aura of an important living thing. That pic means someone somewhere could possibly recognise you in the near or far future and God, that makes you soooo important.

TV stars, for instance. Each one is in transit to the big screen but ends up adopting the airs of Shah Rukh Khan. (One SRK is bad enough, man!) To me, they all look alike and act alike. I can't tell who acts worse on screen --that main character on Bidaai (the boy who is supposed to get married to the dark girl) or the main character on Dill Mil Gaye, or that seriously deprived Karan of the erstwhile (thank God!) Kyunki Saas bhi ....

Before you summarily disown me as the serial watcher, let me salvage my tarnished reputation and declare that I watch the first serial whenever I can, I like the Archie-like humour of the second -sometimes - and have suffered a few scenes of the last saga.

Ideally, a celeb should mean someone who has done something for the betterment of mankind, and not someone who gets jazzed up for a living. Really. How does that make him/her superior, huh?

I completely and utterly adore AB but I cannot imagine drooling over him or his pictures. Never could, even as a teenager. To me, he is doing a job just as my father did (well, technically, he was a businessman) and now I do. What he does in the public life has a curiosity tag that I dont. Fair enough. Even I want to know more about him whenever I can. I could have met him a few thousand times if I wanted to but I never saw the need. And ironically, this superstar of superstars is as humble as others like SRK are arrogant.

Saw 'Wednesday' the other day. What a movie! Scores eons over the others of commercial make. Take 'Fashion' for instance. I usually like Madhur Bhandarkar movies. But this one was too laboured and too endless. One felt fatigued and helpless. Maybe a shorter version, a more realistic ending, and a better actress. Ha! I wanted to physically extricate Priyanka Chopra from the screen, especially during the first half of the film. She should get some special award for her exquisite self-consciousness during her most tragic moments. She was probably the singlemost disappointment of the film.

Now about 'Wednesday'. The movie OF the common man. Man, if I had half a chance I would do exactly what Naseeruddin Shah did. It was Naseer all the way. What a talented couple he and Ratna make. Exquisitely powerful acting. Priyanka Chopra should cross paths with them some day. Their vibes alone could help.

Each day, I write a post here. Seriously. Except that I forget to type it out and publish it. Each day, something happens which makes me think, must write this on the blog. It is then consigned to Deletable Memory, that fantastic storage space for everything you WANT to remember. DM ensures it is out of your mind in no time.

No, I dont believe in the theory that you remember what you want to remember. I simply dont. That includes the tens that my husband introduces me to every day. I dread walking anywhere with him because we bump into someone he knows every step of the way. I tell him he should stand for local elections and he will win unopposed. No one will dare fight him.

And then, he insists on introducing me to each of these people. When none of them register on my blank face, thanks to DM, he baldly tells me in front of that person, "You have met him three times before."

I have no option but to beam. Sustaining the embarrassment, I walk on gamely to plunge head-on into another encounter of the close kind.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. This one is dedicated to my rant on pubs.

Call me utterly, abjectly, disgustingly old-fashioned but I cannot see the fun in pubs. I went to one last week only because it was a must event (that's always the case). An A-rated one in Delhi, the crowd was nice and friendly, my own people. The atmosphere was jovial and happy but, alas, the venue does everything to mar the fun.

There are no lights; so you cant see anyone. There is loud music gatecrashing into your ears; so you cant talk to anyone. There is no place to sit; so you stand forever. There is no room to dance; so we shake our bums on the half-foot space we have managed to reserve on the slippery floor. The bar sells drinks that taste putrid and sorry. The only saving grace is the ban on smoking, which would otherwise have driven me out in five minutes flat.

Oh, what a prude, they say. I'd rather be. Is it so difficult to get a tad sensible and at least try to ensure an atmosphere that is conducive to interacting with one another? Or are we to suffer it because the West has mandated this way of living? Let's get real, guys, and get some self-respect along the way.