Nerve Endings Firing Away

The other day while I was talking to one of my American friends, she suddenly popped the question whether I had a crush on any famous people. She gave it a go first by reciting the clichéd Brad Pitts, Matt Damons and Ben Afflecks (he has lost her charms after he has started dating J Lo for an assortment of reasons). But her question made me immediately think of our Desi babes but of course she doesn’t know either Aamchi Sonali nor Aaplee Urmila. So I had to rack my brains to think of a goori poori (white girl; no racial inclinations intended); rack my brains, you say; yeah I too was surprised I had none to mention on the spur of the moment. I sure like many of them, but a crush; I don’t think so. After some thought, I hesitantly said “Salma Hayek” but hastily added “not anymore though“. “Why not anymore?” she was quick to ask. Me, like a dumbass and in my customary Raja Harishchandra mode blurted out “coz she is faaaaaa..”. Notice how I stopped myself a la Chandler style. But yup, I did mean fat. She was totally shocked “how could you?” was her natural response. But I had my reasons.

Isn’t a crush supposedly a physical attraction? Do we “like someone famous” for what we see rather than what we want to see? Doesn’t our crush resemble an impossible dream that is simply meant to be a dream and nothing more? All my crushes have bordered on the lines of virtual impossibility. But surely none of them have become have an ungraceful obsession. So what if Salma Hayek is horizontally challenged today, Anna Kournikova still is in prime shape; Quod Erat Demonstrandum.