Fringes of Celebrity Hood

So Aryan Khan is all set to leave the school and join Seven Oaks in London. 

I don’t know how many teenage hearts in school are breaking because of this , but I do know how many adult hearts are breaking. After all, how long will it be before Suhana Khan follows suit and there will be no more sightings of SRK? SRK’s star may be falling elsewhere, but in the hearts of the class parents, he will be a superstar- always!

It has been fun living on the fringes of celebrity hood and my earliest memory of the Khan family is when we took Nishna to her first day at school. There was an excited murmur when Gauri Khan walked in with Aryan and the excitement on the faces of my class parents was palpable when we realised that the kiddo was in our section! Every mother had visions of Aryan being buddies with her child!

SRK added glitter to our lives -Sports Days, Annual Days and PTMs were full of excitement because SRK would be there. And when he ran the Parents race at the Sports Day, I don’t think any of us gave our husbands a second glance - you understood why KJo made SRK run in every movie -he runs like a dream!

In true Mumbai spirit, there is a huge divide between the townies and us poor suburbanites. Townie mothers  hem and haw if there is any event beyond Worli, coz that is another city and so far!!

One day Nishna arrived with a card from school. It was Aryan’s birthday and was going to be celebrated at his Bandra home - on a weekday! I called on the number on the card and had a nice brief conversation with Gauri Khan. It went like this :

Me: Hi Gauri, Nishna will be there for the party.

GK: Thanks, you can drop her at 4.30 and fetch her at 7.30.

Me: Great. Is it ok if my maid accompanies her?

GK: Ofcourse, that is fine.

So that was that. 

And the fun had only just begun. Over the next few days, I received a barrage of calls from other mothers. Was I going for the party? How could I let my child go alone? They could not let their child go alone - he/she would not eat/ was too young to be left alone/the maid was on holiday! And on and on went the conversations! 

Then I guess they called Gauri  and the conversation ( I am guessing) was pretty much the same as mine. Very politely, they would have been told that their presence was not welcome and maids could come!

Anyway, to cut the long story short, the kids went alone/with maids to the party and there was a 100% class participation. Meanwhile a large bunch of mothers sipped coffee at Bandstand till the party was over!

There have been many subtle fights among parents who wanted Aryan to be best friends with their sons. Complaining about other kids and leaving Aryan out of the complaints, letting Aryan walk away with the medal when their own son had won the race, keeping other kids in the dark about sleepovers and parties and currying favour with GK has all been part of the class character!

As a girl’s Mom I feel shortchanged at this time. Aryan’s departure means that the girls’ mothers do not get to indulge in all this fun. It would have been great to see who Aryan crushed on , which girls vied for his attention, how we mothers would have egged on our daughters and which one of us girls’ mothers would have tried to be BFFs with GK! Ah! what an opportunity lost!