As for Salman, it’s a positive sign that he intends to take constructive action like improving conditions of jail toilets and contributing money to decrease his inmate’s term of imprisonment, but does he have to make such dramatic statements? Also granted that he was overwhelmed by cheering fans outside his balcony but does that justify stripping his shirt and flinging it to the crowds like he is not out of jail but at a live concert?

And finally, the media. It’s embarrassing the way they get into details about the actor’s clothes—vest, cap, shopping bag. His escorts—brother, sister, girlfriend, bodyguard. And vehicles—Land Cruiser and later charter plane. They insensitively identify Barrack No. 210 occupied by the actor as a status symbol. Is this what we have reduced our front page headlines to?

Twenty-five years ago, when I became a film journalist, film glossies were chided for thriving on star trivialities. The mainstream coined our brand of journalism ‘‘yellow’’. Over the years, while the mainstream, in its greed to conquer greater readership, has transformed to a blazing red, cinema journals have demurely paled in comparison.