Of banana tales and insured balls! Going bonkers for a price!

Raju Korti
People spend money on the most unimaginable things -- things that lesser mortals like me wouldn't be uncapable of even thinking of. Forget dreaming about them; I'd have to Google what half of them are! Sure, we have all heard of luxury real estate, high-end vacations and a car collection that could double as a Formula 1 line up. But nothing prepares you for the absurdities that redefine human creativity  when paired with bottomless wallets.

Let's start with water. For you and me (if you are one of me), its either straight from the tap (boiled for safety because we are sensible) or a bottle we grumble about at Rs 20. Enter Virat Kohli, a man so fit he probably does pushups to pass time between overs. Kohli's water? A pristine French spring sends him "Evian", costing a cool Rs 4000 a litre. You heard it right! His hydration probably costs more than your monthly grocery bill. I wonder if his sweat could sell as a boutique syrup.

And then there is Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who bought conceptual art titled "Comedian". What's this masterpiece, you may ask? A banana duct-taped to a wall. Cost: A mere (!) $9.5 million. Taste? "Much better than regular bananas", he said, as he peeled and ate it in the vacationsque Hong Kong. It wasn't a snack -- it was performance art, you stupid! For the patently uninitiated life of me, who has eaten bananas as an after-meal fruit, it is now a nature's designer I fight shy of buying. Never mind, if it costs just Rs 50 a dozen. If money makes the mare go, it does the same to asses as well.

Speaking of "investment", I read media mogul Nick Cannon decided to insure his family jewels. A cool $10 million, just in case. According to him, "it's my most valuable asset". Makes you wonder if his insurance agent had to sit through that pitch without choking on his coffee. Meanwhile, rapper Lil Uzi Vert opted for a pink diamond worth $30 million embedded in his forehead. The crowd at his show reportedly tried to rip it out of his head. The diamond's fate? It now rests in peace -- and obscurity -- much like common sense. Little wonder, Nick's Cannon is much the loser, like a modern-day Ashwatthama.

Even historical figures make the meritorious cut. Take Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines, who had so may shoes that Cinderella's fairy godmother would have quit. I mean, even if she wore a different pair every day, she would need several lifetimes to strut them all. I recall as a night sub on duty, this among the main story of how she and and her husband held the Guinness World Record for the "greatest robbery of a government", putting Suharto of neighbourhood Indonesia at a poor second. I wonder what happened to all those footwear and on whose feet they chose to finally erode.

The instances are legion. Film-maker Anurag Kashyap recently spilled Bollywood's budgetary tea. A chef charging Rs 2 lakh a day to cater to an actor's whims? Another star shooting off a driver three hours away for a burger? All I can imagine is if the director even whispered "budget cut" in a film studio, there would be mass fainting. And then, there is the ultimate splurge: Celebrities buying houses and cars like there's no tomorrow. You make $20 million a year. Why not buy a $30 million home? Welcome to the club where bankruptcy is just another sequel to the blockbuster of life.

In all fairness we need not judge. What is extravagant to us is essential necessity to them. Sure, because nothing screams "essential" like a banana for the price of a private jet or a diamond face-implant destined to end as a flop/tragedy. Some invest in mutual funds; others duct-tape produce to walls. Cheers to the absurdity of human ambitions, duct-taped for posterity. If you make $20 million a year, and go and buy a 30 million dollar house, you are still broke.