Star-struck and speechless

When I met my favourite author, I realised fawning fever runs in the family

The day started well. One of my favourite authors was in town and was going to read from her latest novel at the local bookstore. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to meet her. “What am I going to wear?” I wondered aloud as I stared at the saris in my closet for a long time. “Ma, aren’t you going to be in the audience?” asked my daughter. She was confused as she caught me draping each sari and peering into the mirror. I could see that my husband was trying hard not to laugh out loud.

“Didn’t we meet two years ago?” When the author greeted me with this opening remark later in the evening, I could barely stop myself from preening. I began to babble like a star-struck teenager and made inane remarks about her new book. “I predict a Booker next year and pray that...” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I was horrified. What on earth was happening to me? Fortunately for me, the event organisers swooped in and took her away. I slunk into a seat in the last row and quietly slipped out after the reading.

That night, when my husband asked me about the book reading, I realised that I wasn’t all that different from my own family and friends. Some of my funniest childhood memories are of watching adults act in an uncharacteristic manner when they bump into their idols in public spaces. A grim uncle of mine giggled like a three-year-old when he narrated the story of discovering his favourite actor sitting next to him on a flight. “I then did a special offering at the Ram temple on my way home!”

I recall my uncle’s beatific smile when he spoke about this at a family event much later. One of my mother’s friends, a staid septuagenarian with a perpetually dour expression on her face, morphed into a gushing teen when she spotted an actress from her favourite television soap opera at the local supermarket. “She clung to the actress and even paid her shopping bill, declaring it to be a divine blessing,” my mother reminisced over her friend’s embarrassing behaviour. But nothing had prepared me for my cousin’s effusive praise at a classical concert. “Even Shiva would have danced in utter bliss after hearing this music, and Saraswati would have descended to earth.” Listening to her praise the musician who was standing in front of her, I frantically looked for the nearest exit.

It’s no wonder that I too suffer from this fawning fever, having grown up around it all my life. A fact that I use shamelessly with my children to remind them to be grateful that I merely confine my gushing to dressing up!