Walk of the Stars

Bandra got its own version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week, and unfortunately it’s a shoddy copy.

Kareena Kapoor sat on the lap of a particularly creepy statue of her grandfather, Raj Kapoor, to inaugurate UTV Stars’ Walk of the Stars at Bandstand. Modelled after the Hollywood Walk of Fame, “deserving, glamorous and big stars who have contributed a lot to Indian cinema” (Nikhil Gandhi of UTV Stars to Yahoo News) will have their handprints and signatures embedded in brass plates laid out for Johnny Public to ogle at. The Kapoor khandaan is all present in their 5 digited glory, as the first family of Bollywood (sorry Bachchans).

Photographs by Evren D’Souza

A sad stretch of the Bandstand promenade has shabbily set tiles that look unfinished, and in most cases the brass is scratched up like the undersoles of Hritik Roshan’s dancing shoes. The blatant UTV branding is a bit much and what could have been a cool tribute to Bollywood ends up looking like the result of an afterthought at a UTV PR meeting.

As the heart of Bollywood, Bandra is a fitting place to have some sort of an homage to the film industry. It’s sad that what we’re left with is an unoriginal idea that is poorly executed. This Walk of the Stars is more like a slow crawl.