By: Chandrima Bhattacharya
Saturday April 28
Mumbai, April 27: At the much-touted sky party, Hrithik Roshan wowed his audience by almost not being there.
But he did it 30,000 feet above the ground, hovering over Arabian Sea, before rows of ogling fans, some of them with heavy glitter on their eyes. On board Flight 9W3661, which took off from Santa Cruz airport last evening for "destination Sky Party", he appeared, parting the blue curtain that separated his business class from the economy section, gleaming in a white T-shirt, flashing his multi-crore smile and sporting his Kaho Naa Pyar Hai swagger. His eyes were a gentle shade of grey, his jeans blue.
There would have been an uprising as almost all the 30 winners of a competition, for whom the one-hour mid-air treat had been organised, shot up from their seats. But their seat-belts were fastened. There were muffled screams and a collective "ooooh" went up.
Hrithik paraded down the aisle, bending to say a word per person or shaking hands, walked back, flashed his smile again and disappeared behind the blue curtain. The whole exercise lasted about three minutes, but that was enough for a sprinkling of nubile nymphets at the back of the plane. They swooned. One of the winners started shaking all over – he was trying to dance to a Hrithik number.
The competition had been organised by a toothpaste company and the winners had been flown in from various parts of the country (three were from Calcutta) with the promise that they would be partying with Hrithik. Buy toothpaste, get Hrithik free.
But the message was clear: Hrithik Roshan can only be used sparingly. Each winner had been allowed all of half-a-minute to interact with the superstar — enough time for an autograph and a question. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a vegetable vendor from Mumbai, one of the winners. For the first time in his life, he was going to be shown on television. Awestruck, he didn’t mind all the lights glaring at him – he just couldn’t stop speaking.
He also didn’t mind the fact that before the take-off, Hrithik had rushed into a news conference two hours late — amid clouds of red and white heart-shaped balloons symbolising the brand — where the superstar barely had time to admit that he used two kinds of toothpaste.
After the sky party, at a dinner-and-dance "with Hrithik", the star appeared on stage, taught a young girl how to dance the complicated Pyar ki kashti mein dance, was told by another young female fan that he looks best "half-shaven", asked his fans to desist from writing letters in blood and disappeared.
The "Sky Party with Hrithik" was at an end. The take-off had taken more time than the flight. Manbhari Anchalia, who had come all the way from Calcutta, was a little disappointed. So were Ria and Shruti, who had come from Nagpur. But even as Hrithik was waving his good-byes, a middle-aged woman was screaming "I love you Hrithik" while asking her daughter and sister to join her. The vegetable vendor was still talking.