A life well spent

I am reading Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, the autobiography of Rupert Everett. Having got through most of it, I am wondering why it was written and why Rupert Everett would even bother to consider writing it. It is not that he is a bad actor – he is a very good one, both on stage (or so I am told) and on screen. But he seems to have spent most of his life indulging in what people primly call ‘excess’. Drinking, drugging, sleeping around – even prostitution, partying and worse (or better, depending on your perspective on the matter), living a life of Riley (whoever he was) without the means to do so without worrying. It all seems to have been dreadfully wasteful of a life so full of promise. But then, those were the days when dissipation was haute, shoving strange pharmaceuticals into your body was chic and it was considered the height of louche not to know anyone who was anyone in the circuit. What happened to his immense talent and his roles? Who knows. Maybe they all got sublimated into the book. Maybe – as is usually the case with me – they were too important to make this public; the little facets of his life were not as meaningful and could be easily revealed without any vulnerability being displayed or expressed.

But then there are other lives that have been as intense, as meaningful, as public, conducted with far more dignity and discretion. Consider Chandralekha, the Chennai-based dancer, who died not too long ago. She was indeed a well known figure, someone who commanded attention with her diminutive stature, her dramatically white hair, her frank opinions, especially on sex and its depiction in classical dance and, of course, her choreography and performance. She managed to bring a special fire into all that she said and did, however controversial, with touches of sheer genius in productions like Leelavati. But she was not known for her lifestyle; more, for her art.

Or there is Helen Mirren, now in centre-focus for her performance in the Golden Globe winning Queen. Her life has been eventful, to say the least, by all reports, but she has always been better known for her acting. Her role in Prime Suspect, as a brilliant detective with a drinking problem was just about the best thing to watch on TV at some stage – we never missed an episode, even if it happened to clash with dinner or guests. And now she has done a star turn, literally, as Queen Elizabeth trying to handle the death of Princess Diana. Oscar, here she comes?

People live their own lives in their own way. But when they choose to make those lives public, there is a certain responsibility involved. A mandate to show off what is meaningful, comprehensible, identifiable with. And not just a litany of who that person has slept with, under what circumstances and how it all happened. There has to be more to life – any life – that that!