SHOBHAA'S DAY

Today must belong to to the formidable Ms Shobhaa De. I am possibly getting my knickers in a twist about this, but Ms.De appears to have discarded hers altogether.

Ms De, as everyone knows, has some fan following amongst the ignorati in Mumbai and for reasons I cannot yet fathom gets column space in otherwise respectable newspapers. You are not anyone if you don't know who she is. She was a quintessential Marathi mulgi who parlayed her good looks into a successful career in modeling which in turn she used to edit a gossip weekly focusing on the lives and loves of Bollywood glitterati. Or was it a monthly? Whatever it was, it should never have been allowed out in the interest of good taste.

She married into a once-famous business family whose taste in women was as questionable as its business calls - they are now a has-been business family. Continuing the trend of relentless social climbing she divorced and married more money and became self appointed arbiter of taste and fashion amongst the nouveau riche and wanna-be rich in Mumbai. Harking back to her days as a pretty and petty hack, she wrote many a column, mostly on the doings of the wannabe-rich and the wanna-be famous, bequeathing to Indian English such apt, if somewhat unoriginal, acronyms as SoBo (stands for South Bombay where the glitterati mostly lived). And a a couple of books too, whose themes consisted mainly of permutations and combinations of organs and orifices.

Her recent avatar has been that of a Social commentator. She also expresses herself on the political and economic situations obtaining in India at this juncture. Her good looks have not faded, despite the relentless march of time. On the looks department, she is like a good vintage wine - sharp edges rounded a bit, well maintained and very much agreeable. her thoughts, though continue to be simple, personality-focused and quite irrelevant.

Today she has commented on the change of guard at the RBI, the Indian central bank. Of all the things she could think of to comment upon - the credentials of the outgoing and incoming Governors, their track records, the problems that face(d) them and the policy options available to them, etc etc - the one thing she chose to comment on was their respective sex appeal. Raghuram Rajan's looks and purported "hotness" seem the raging issue amongst the Mumbai glitterati, judging by their favourite columnist, socialite, and author. Even for someone of her vacuity this is like plumbing the Pacific depths.

It is said that the American has sex on his mind, and that the Indian has sex on his mind and fear in his heart. Shobhaa De is the exceptional Indian - she has sex in her heart but has no mind.