Just how much do we love entertainers?

India is a land filled with diverse cultures and multitudinous festivals. It hence should not come as a surprise that we love having fun and we love being entertained. And more so, we love the ones who entertain. For example, Lalit Modi. With the IPL becoming a household name with everything in it for everyone, three years ago, Lalit Modi became a star. On Twitter he has more than 81,000 people following him. And that is more than the number of followers Sania Mirza, Arbaaz Khan, Vijay Mallya, Mallika Sherawat, Jiah Khan and Yuvraj Singh have. So yes, that makes him considerably well known and liked.

Two prominent names in Cinema from down south are Mohanlal and Mammooty. Honestly, I’m scared that I maybe killed while walking on the road because I haven’t prefixed “Sir” before their names...such is the fanaticism that these two names can bring forth. These two actors have done close to 50 films together. There are rumours that in a village in south India, on the eve of the release of one such film, the village resembled a riot stricken place simply because that afternoon the villagers had debated who of the two was a better actor?

Few things transcend boundaries. Love could be one of them and love for a superstar is definitely one of them. More than 4 decades after the death of the legendary Charlie Chaplin, in a small town in Gujarat called Adipur, a local Charlie Chaplin fan club still has members who dress up as the comedian and roam around town on his birthday. And it’s not just the men of the village, but even the kids and women who don’t mind strutting around sporting toothbrush moustache, bowler hat, scruffy black suit and cane.

When Argentina footballer Diego Maradona visited Calcutta a couple of years ago, the stadium was literally made a fortress. Security was to be top notch and the stadium was obviously jam packed. Infact, the Calcutta's police chief then even went on record to say that the frenzy Maradona generated, had increased the police force’s work load as much as a terror attack would.

Temples for film stars in India is not uncommon as well. While the celebrities, sensibly, say that a temple made in their name is taking things too far, the fans or should we say “devotees” continue to flock to these “temples”. In a country where we often hear people say, “Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God?”, the question arises of how far is too far? So, just how much do we love entertainers? How far would you go?

- By Karan Bhatia