Living la vida celeb When a man is on top of the world, he is bound to have a few enemies. Ricky Martin is no exception. The Latino sensation, who came over the world like a crazed El Nino with his single Maria, is the unenviable subject of a rather popular website - or hate site, to be more precise. It calls itself 'Why Ricky Martin Should Burn in Rock 'n' Roll Hell'. An excerpt from one of the reasons offered by the site goes something like this: 'He can sing. But there are millions who can sing. Because he can only sing and not write a song or play an instrument, we'll get someone else to write a catchy tune...then we can begin the merchandising. This has all been done before, so the producers thought, 'wait a minute...he's Latin... he could sing Latin music...new wave Latin music!... that's what we'll do'.' A slice of pure malice no doubt. A man who has been virtually hailed as the global ambassador of Latino - any form of music that has congas and timbales and is vaguely Hispanic in origin - can't be a cleverly planned out industrial product. What's more, he is charitable, and spiritual, as amply proved by his recent and earlier visits to India. Two years back, even Ricky's closest friends would have thought as much. Take the case of Robi Draco Rosa, one of Martin's pals and co-author of the monumental hits Livin' La Vida Loca and The Cup Of Life. When the 30-year-old Puerto Rican sensation decided to grace US President George W. Bush's election victory festivities in early 2001, Rosa was shocked. 'Singing The Cup Of Life at George Bush's inauguration is like playing the fiddle while Rome burns. This is a partisan act. This is a president who has people on his cabinet who would obstruct the exercise of civil rights and human rights. This is a betrayal of everything that every Puerto Rican should stand for,' he said. Had Rosa scratched a little deeper, the decision wouldn't have come as such a big surprise. After all, Martin is the king of all crossover artistes - a term generally used for performers who turn to English from their native tongues to sell their music to America. His Spanglish albums have as much Latin influence as heavy metal has metal. Like all other artistes of his genre (yes, even Carlos Santana in his new incarnation), Martin ruthlessly compromised on his art to ensure his success in white suburban America. Fernando Olvera, vocalist for the successful Mexican band Mana, sums it up well: 'Ricky is a friend of mine but his music isn't the real thing. Latin music is an ocean of sensation that Anglos haven't yet discovered. I'm concerned. A lot of things that come to America end up like Ricky Martin.' Martin, for one, sure did want to end up in the US. As Ricky Martin, a superstar. Born Enrique 'Kiki' Martin IV and brought up in the middle-class suburbs of the Puerto Rican town of Hato Rey, the CEO of Ricky Martin Inc. managed his career in a way that was anything but vida loca. Debuting in commercials at the age of seven, he joined boy-band Menudo, an eighties version of eye candy for drooling girls, as a teenager. But fame in the Spanish-speaking world didn't count for much. Aiming for Uncle Sam's patronage, Martin soon left the band and started working in American soaps and Broadway musicals. At the same time, he kept on releasing Latin albums and marketed them relentlessly all over the world. Except in the US. A move that ensured that he got the much coveted role of singing the FIFA World Cup '98 anthem and phenomenal publicity and album sales. As Martin explains, 'People asked 'Why Europe now? Why go into Asia before America?' Let's put it this way: America is my doctorate. Europe and Asia... there I did my master's.' When Martin finally hit his promised land in 1999 with his first English-language album (simply titled Ricky Martin), all the collective global hype rocketed him straight to Number One, where he remained lodged for several weeks. By his own admittance, it was the euphoria that followed that made Martin turn to Indian mysticism, namely yoga and Buddhism. 'Yoga came into my life with such perfect timing. It came into my life right before the Grammys [in 1999],' he says. Good for him but what's new? Stars from the Western hemisphere, from Madonna to Meg Ryan, worth a peek have run the spiritual mills to death. It's a sort of a rite of passage for the bold and the beautiful - if you're not in the namaste brigade, your stardom remains incomplete. And what better way to recover from the daily hangovers of life as a wild party. As one pop observer noted: 'The spiritual side of the Catholic-reared Martin, nurtured with meditation and yoga breathing, co-exists with that of a wild adventurer who sky dives to break from the norm.' Charity too is usual celebrity territory. So is the money that Martin Inc. will be making by selling the exclusive photo rights of the tour to the UK-based Hello! magazine, which is known for its 'buying the star at any cost' policy. If there's genuine conviction behind the football matches with the Calcutta kids, it has so far remained elusive. At least in his art. His songs - generally the pointer to the artiste's inner self - are well, all about shaking your bon bon. The Indian connection that perhaps runs much deeper is Sushmita Sen. She genuinely came close to the elusive Maria that Martin keeps talking about in many of his interviews. The two met at a festival in 1994, just after Sush had won the Miss Universe title. Martin was floored from the word go. Right after their very first date, he presented her with a 'I Love You' teddy bear, which Sen fondly calls Ricky to this day. 'I always wanted to meet a woman from that culture, and all of a sudden I have in front of me the first Miss Universe from India. It was like a dream,' Martin had said at that point of time. The romance didn't last too long and Sen refuses to comment on him these days. But when asked in a recent interview if she still keeps in touch, she replied: 'Yeah, we do keep in touch.' But also added: 'I don't like the new look of his blonde hair. I'm happy that he's got the success he so very much wanted. I just hope he's not changed with all the adulation.' The Calcutta visit would have been the best opportunity to check out on that for the Bengali beauty. As for us, if Sush was here, no one's telling.