Do you know who I am?

Do you know who I am?

By: Anuvab Pal


The rules that prevail in the world of entitlement can be warped. The letters that announce the model of car you’ve driven in and the retinue of minions you command trump who you really are, as I discovered at one recent SoBo event


I went to a high profile event, (on the card it said, “An exclusive event”) at a well-known South Mumbai venue last week. A respected scribe was being feted for lifetime achievement — the entrance had a fancy carpet and photographers and a table with young PR women (who, I’ve concluded, are all, regardless of age or event or name, essentially the same person. Just proliferating event-to-event. Like the minions in Despicable Me. And they all have the same hair-which looks like it started out
as a cupcake and eventually went on a 23-year-old head).

They were checking names off some list. Of important Mumbai people. The who’s who. (Or as I was later told, “anyone who is anyone” is here. I didn’t clarify the Aristotelian theory that everyone is someone.)

Every other person got off a black Mercedes car (every big car looks like that now, even a hearse) and walked to the desk, exuding an air of importance, looking angry, irritated, suggesting, “Should you not already know who I am? What is this nuisance of having to tell you who I am?”

So when asked for their name, they stated what their face already said, they asked “Do you know who I am?” (First lesson of drama — show don’t tell). The poor PR girl replied “Yes, sir” (out of fear) and then “No, sir” (because she actually had no idea).

I realised quickly that this was acting — under it, the idea being, “I’m someone important so I must appear even more important.” Anyone who is anyone cannot just be anyone who goes to the desk smile and say, “Um, hello”. Then they’d be no one.

Some of these VIPs had a person, their own minion, jump out of the front seat, rush to the desk, and ask, “Do you know who he is?” (For those too important to even say, “Do you know who I am?”, outsource that sentence).

Depending on the size of the Mercedes, the number of sidekicks jumping out of the front seat, gravitas the person demonstrated, the more the respect. In one instance, when a person looked like he might have fire lasers coming out of his eyes when asked for his first name, the PR girls stood up. One almost saluted.

I’ll have you know they had no more information that just names. A first name and a last. So they had no actual way of telling who was a police commissioner, a chief secretary, a media mogul, a gate-crasher. Unless one was reasonably aware of faces in newspapers, the desks were going entirely by gut, general knowledge, car appearance and how haughty the person pretended to be.

In the middle of all this, a very pleasant gentleman walked up to the desk. The event was in his honour. His name was on all the hoardings. He didn’t however come in a fancy car. He’d chosen to park it at some distance and walk. And he made the fatal mistake of coming up to the desk, smiling and saying, “Um. Hello.”

This triggered off immediate class related behavioural thoughts in the PR desk — and along with it, Holmes-like deduction of his status. He had on a bush shirt, he was smiling, he was walking, he was nice — he was the opposite of the important people getting off the car — therefore, surely in the hierarchy of the world — he was no one. He couldn’t be. What is an important person doing being nice to minions?


He said his name a few times. He wasn’t on the list. Naturally. Given he wasn’t a guest, it was his night. The list was to see him.
He was a former news legend — wasn’t a household name anymore, wasn’t a YouTube sensation doing ironic viral videos; so young people had no idea. He repeated who he was, pointing to his name on the hoarding, it made the PR girls more nervous now certain he was a lunatic demanding freebies. Just when security came, did everyone realise the monumental mess-up, after which short of prostrating themselves face down like he was Ashoka and this was Takshila in 750 BC, every apology was presented and in the usual melodramatic style one carried a glass of water behind him while another offered to even carry him. When a Sri Krishna Commission-type inquiry grilled the poor PR girls after, one holding back tears, explained her mistake thus (and accurately summed up India), “Sir, if he was someone, why was he not in a Merc or an Audi?”

When we go to a prestigious event in Mumbai, you can’t just go. You have to perform. A famous fashion designer explained to me, “Sometimes I’ll go to Taj or The Four Seasons and I’ll be early, so I’ll tell my driver to do two rounds and come back. If my car is being repaired, I’ll hire one. You can’t go in a taxi, that’s mad. You can’t be early. And no matter how hard parking is, you have to drive up to the main lobby and have the door opened for you.” Even if it means missing the entire event because it took that long to get to the hotel entrance because of the queue of cars. Then you have to walk in with an attitude that says, “I have better things to do” (You don’t — this invite is the highlight of your life) and make sure you say, “Do you know who I am” (which has no real answer).

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