Sameera Reddy

Oh diary, I am sorry that sometimes I am unable to read what I scribble in you. That is because it’s done while I am sleepwalking. Yes, I do sleepwalk and I like dropping hints about this to the celeb media (without which I cannot live). So I am happy they carried the item with a lovely photograph of mine in a skimpy dress. Sleepwalking comes in handy for a starlet with no roles barring the occasional item number, once-in-a-while ramp walks and film functions. In fact, the celebrity media should assign a ‘sleepwalking correspondent’ to cover me. By the way, the media also reported that I am off to Switzerland. The late Yashji and other filmmakers often went there for location shooting (one of the Swiss lakes is even named after Yashji for the number of film units he brought to the country). Of course, I do not have any films right now but someone told me the country offers a cure for sleepwalking. How this is done, I’m still to find out. You know people visit Kerala for its Ayurvedic massages and long back I read that Englishmen visited the city of Bath to take a dip in the local waters to cure their ills. Watch out, Indians with Swiss bank accounts, my sleepwalking may lead to you spending sleepless nights!

The celebrity media, meanwhile, has published my entire tour programme. First a visit to Greece to be with my sister who is expecting. I could do some shopping for the newborn, something I do anyway, even while I am sleepwalking! From there, I am off to Switzerland to ingratiate myself with any of the Indian film units hanging around. That will not affect my sleepwalking treatment though, since I am anyway known to sleepwalk through my bit roles. The only sound that wakes me up is the popping flashes of the paparazzi.

My mind is working overtime at the juicy tidbits I could throw for the Indian media on my foreign sleepwalking treatment. It’ll be something like that Sandokan, no one knew what it was but since Kabir Bedi claimed it was a big Italian hit, the media splashed it and Bedi became a celebrity. I could always tell the media that while I sleepwalked through the ancient Greek theatres, producers vied with one another in offering me plum roles like Helen of Troy etc. The Swiss TV channels were ready with scripts with a leading role in the show, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and a modern version of Rip Van Winkle in which they showed Rip’s wife and not him sleeping for 20 years. That would definitely help with my sleepwalking cure. Finally, I can tell the media I am being considered for the lead role in a film version of Erle Stanley Gardner’s mystery thriller, Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece.

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com