Being Paris

On a morning which seemed to be as dull as the newspapers would make it sound my eyes were quick to latch onto a snippet which said parishiltonexposed.com. Though only claiming an insignificant top-corner in the ‘International News’-page it did its part in calling every onlooker to attention by the bold red in which it was lettered.

Not uninitiated in any way to being testimony to her previous sexual escapades I wondered what more remained to be hitherto ‘exposed’ of the blonde bimbette who had already had more sex-videos leaked/publicized than Hrithik Roshan has fingers on his hands. A sneak-peek into the site and all doubts melted to make way for crystal clarity.

“ THIS IS THE REAL DEAL - PARIS EXPOSED!

Imagine Paris Hilton, heiress to one of the most famous and well-heeled families in the World, EXPOSED like no one before her.”

- The site screamed.

A rough tour around the site and grave questions started surfacing in my mind.

What if she really is a reviled lot?

What if she really doesn’t like being seen as a sex-object the world around, and nothing much?

What if she really is an innocent young girl trying to come to terms with the ‘rigors of riches’, not knowing how to spend her inherited-easy-millions and going astray in the process?

What if she really was looking for ‘Real Love’ in the arms of Rick Solomon, Paris Latsis, Nick Carter, Cher’s son and a still-to-be-named battalion of males? It could be that these perverts would only want her to have sex in exchange for some silent moments of togetherness that every girl so fantasizes of. Can’t this be true too?

And then after I tried hard to be the ‘think in her/his boots’- psychoanalyst did I realize, with a sigh of resignation, that she was really made for the more erudite of my kind. I was not to unravel the mysteries of a woman’s mind or even make a vague attempt to do so, howsoever overexposed and commodified she may be in the world entertainment market.

Disappointed once again with my inability to be the ‘Understanding Observer’, being synthetic in my sympathies for someone/something I would better make a living lambasting to smithereens, I quit.

And made way for my more skeptic alter-ego.

So, here goes.

Paris Hilton is not a one-of-a-kind aberration of the human female that inflicts (and sometimes titillates) our senses with unnerving regularity. She is our key to a multiplicity of other issues too.

Take for example the oft aired angst against the “filthy rich-who-flaunt-to-death”-lifestyle by us, people who toil assiduously to make ends meet in a ‘then-third-world-now-prosperous’ country.

Paris is our favorite punch-bag. And understandably so. To us she is the representative of the reckless rich who don’t even care two hoots if people are dying in Somalia of starvation when she dresses her pet Chihuahua in designer clothes and jewellery. At a time when the old rich are fast getting replaced by the young go-getters she surely goes down as a shameful brand of extravagance and self-promotion. No two ways on that.

Regarding the question of morality, she doesn’t seem to be the one to brandish a Bible unless she herself comes to write a sexually significant interpretation of it sometime in the future. Ah!! Sacrilege. So there goes your morality in the age of instant gratification, given the net and its emerging omniscience. One can imagine ‘Brand Paris’ making it big in the years to come, accruing valuable visibility the world over on adult sites and glitzy magazine covers, silently raking in the moolah, milking our natural curiosity for nudity. Morality being reduced to a ‘low-value-high-maintenance liability’ won’t be an attractive proposition faced with the might of the ‘in-your-face’ options for cheap thrills the Paris Hiltons of our age would offer. This is just the beginning. At a time when a two week jail-term of a ‘Hotel Heiress’ is reported 24*7 on major publications and news portals morality as an old and trusted stanchion can hear its death bell ringing. A downright narcissist who enjoys the reverse psychological aspect of voyeurism by releasing sex-tapes for public consumption, Paris Hilton is best left to the mercies of ‘the shrink’ and his ‘couch’.

Lesser mortals like us who have to deal with the daily grind are better off treated occasionally to her simian acrobatics and nocturnal escapades, preferably accompanied.

As says the site,

"......Observe with your own senses the outrageous (and often obscene) views that Paris and her crowd have toward each other, other races, religions and, of course, fat people."

I had just one feeling,

"-Ain't I dying to know."

Photos: Courtesy: Rediff.com