Aishwarya Rai killed by Internet spoof

Aishwarya Rai is the current glamour queen of Indian cinema. All major stars and big time directors want her in their movies. Her adoring fans wait eagerly for her every new release with much anticipation.

She is one of a very few Indian stars who have successfully crossed the cultural divide to mesmerise the western audience. Her latest English offering – the Mistress of Spice – attracted reasonable openings in both the US and the UK.

She has everything going for her and looks set to achieve even more in the near future. Thus you can understand the maddening despair and disbelieve both in India as well as the rest of the world when news starting coming in about her death.

Emails started flying around the world seeking confirmation. The international media tried to confirm this story and fans started their mourning period.

But in actual truth, the actress is not dead. In fact she is busy shooting a movie for the acclaimed director Mani Ratnam in Chennai.

Apparently the news of her untimely death in a car accident in the US was posted by a US-based website which is known for putting up spoof news for fun.

A part of the news article read as follows:

"Highway Safety Investigators have told reporters that Aishwarya Rai lost control while driving a friend's vehicle on Interstate 80 and rolled the vehicle several times killing her instantly."

And it ended its posting by this disclaimer:

"This story was dynamically generated using a generic 'template' and is not factual. Any reference to specific individuals has been 100 per cent fabricated by web site visitors who have created fake stories by entering a name into a blank 'non-specific' template for the purpose of entertainment."

Surely the website must take responsibility for creating such a chaos. What if her fans had started a riot in Indian towns and cities? We know they are fully capable of that – remember what happened in Bangalore when actor Rajkumar died?

And on the other hand, people who forwarded the spoof news must make sure their receivers know that it is false. Otherwise, they too are as guilty for spreading potentially dangerous rumours.

But at the end of the day I think it just shows how gullible people are. But we must remember that killing someone, even for fun, is not funny.