INDIA'S MOST DESIRABLE WOMAN

I woke up this Saturday morning quite chirpy and chipper only to to be presented with this headline in one of the dailies, admittedly one that prides itself as a business first and then and only then as a newspaper; one whose business model is based on Page 3 trivia. Despite this, the headline offended me. Here it is in full:

Some explanations are necessary for those unfamiliar with Indian Page 3 scene, Bollywood Babes, current Indian popular obsessions and Indian genealogy. The said "BEBO", is no doubt a a distortion of generic infant name turned infant pet name "baby" (very imaginative, that one, isnt it?). This bebo, continuing in the spirit of the parents and the family, is the daughter of a failed Bollywood actress and an actor who failed to make it big in Bollywood despite his family credentials; and is the grand daughter of a very well known Bollywood star and actor whose casting couch was reportedly the gateway to Bollywood career during two or three decades.

Having thus traced the genealogy of the most desirable woman of 2011, I shall proceed to flatly state that the characterization must offend all Indian women. Or at least get them thinking. It certainly got me thinking. 

Since when have we slipped in our aesthetic standards so much that a young woman who looks like her grand father in drag is crowned the most desirable? Or is it that we were always ambivalent about being androgynous and effeminate? Is it in some way an inseparable part of our culture and mental make up, ascribable to the principle of "ardhanari" (half-man-half-woman) in our mythology? Whatever the reason I would argue that men in drag and androgynous females  have both been big hits in the indicators of our popular culture, the movies. They have never failed to titillate the great unwashed multitudes. Most Bollywood movies had a scene or two showing the protagonist  in drags in order to gain access to the girl, although the tendency in today's movies appears to be for the women to drop their clothes and not to be swathed in more. Raj Kapoor has done it, Sanjeev Kumar has done it, even Shahrukh Khan has done it - I do hope I don't get slapped for this last mentioned sacrilege. I doubt if Kabir Bedi has done it although some say he would have made an appealing picture if he had. I personally doubt that.

The tendency to cross-dress seems be an innate characteristic of Indians. Notwithstanding the philosophical underpinnings of the principle of "ardhanari", it is good to keep the two identities separate, in my opinion. The result of such cross-dressing is grotesque and even in movies it was used to elicit some cheap thrills and not to appeal to one's aesthetic sense. If page three had intended it that way, I have nothing further to say on today's headline.

In the land of Apsaras, Rambha, Menaka, Urvashi  and Deepika Padukone I have a problem with a headline that labels as  the most desirable someone who looks like Raj Kapoor in drag.