A Mumbai psychiatrist recently claimed that the average Indian thinks about the Bachchans at least once every day. That’s one billion people suffering from a collective cathexis, commonly known as a harmless adolescent crush. Except that now, with the “Abhi-Ash” hysteria, its beginning to border on the pathological.

Shaking your head? You’re obviously in denial, beta. Admit it: choli ke peechhe we are all as obsequiously obsessed as anybody else. Why? Well, simply because the Bachchans are our role models, the living incarnation of the Perfect Indian Family. Here’s how:

Big B: The Perfect Patriarch, distinguished, dignified, devoted. A good husband (of course, there was that little, uh, distraction — but heck, men will be men, won’t they?), and a wonderful father (how many do you know who devote their entire lives to personally promoting their sons — apart from conscientiously promoting every suiting, eyewear, pen, shaving cream, mutual fund, car, refrigerator, pension scheme and herbal remedy on the market?) Above all, a man of character who shoots to stardom and pulls himself out of the professional pits with equal panache and felicity — then modestly attributes it to the grace of God.

Mrs B: The Perfect Matriarch, ruling her roost with the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. The perfect wife, who forgave her lord his trespasses, and ran the domestic show discreetly behind her pallu. The protective mama, who knows when to put her foot down (well, wasn’t she right about the Kapoor Girl, after all?) And, with a seat in the Rajya Sabha, also an aspiring, modern day Mother India.

... contd.