Who would have imagined that the Daily Mail and the Guardian and even the BBC would be concerned about how Aishwarya Rai Bachchan would look on the Red Carpet in Cannes this year? Amongst others, even I was interviewed for articles and radio shows this week speculating on the impact a post-baby Aishwarya Rai Bachchan would have on her “fans” back home. And, generally, there was huge concern being expressed on whether the Bachchan Bahu would have been able to regain her former sylph-like figure. I have seen British and American actors (both male and female) being subjected to this forensic scrutiny but thus far no Indian actor has ever been held under the microscope like this in the UK.
The good news is that no matter what Ash looks like now, she is an international brand and her life is part of the global cinema industry. But the bad news is that she won’t be able to smile away comparisons with the painfully thin Victoria Beckham or Angelina Jolie who both appear to be made of Teflon with their ability to bounce back to size zero, even after giving birth. This is a very unfair and hurtful discussion especially when Ash seems to be enjoying motherhood to the hilt, and why not? Perhaps she could indulge herself and stay away from the unfair demands of being a screen goddess for a while. Or she could very well set a new trend and allow herself the luxury of a fulsome figure as well as a family life, and maybe look for other roles to play, beyond cinema and product endorsements. Or like her own mother-in-law she might decide to take some time out from active celebrity life. It is a tough decision, but the Bachchan Bahu is a smart woman.
Ash is India’s best-known face abroad and no doubt she’ll find a clever way to deal with this present furore over her figure. A step in the right direction has been to link her appearance at Cannes not just with a product endorsement but to raise funds for the battle against AIDS.

And talking about good causes: last week we attended the ARK dinner — one of the biggest charity fund raisers in town — which, even in these times of recession, raised 14 million pounds. Held at Kensington Palace Gardens, it jumped into the “must-be-seen-at” list when it became the first official engagement that the newly married Royals, Will and Kate, attended last year. And we had a marvellous group at our table, which included the wonderful Andrew Lloyd (Lord) Weber and his wife Madeleine, as well as Norman (Lord) Foster and his wife Elena. Of course, Lord Foster is Britain’s best-known architect and even though he had won every architectural award in the world (he has also designed some of the world’s best-known landmarks like the Millenium Bridge in London as well as the HSBC building in Hong Kong) he chatted very movingly about his working-class childhood in Manchester, and of his father who was a security guard. He even remembered how his mother reacted when he was admitted to the school of architecture. He was the first of his family to go to college and she was too nervous to ask him anything, just in case he had felt out of place there. The class distinction he grew up with in the UK irked him immensely, which is why he was thankful for the years he spent in Yale, something which has made him a fan of the US and its educational system.
Another iconic man who battled his working class background in the UK, died recently. Vidal Sassoon changed our hair for ever, with his “wash and wear”, classically geometric styles which broke away from the then popular backcombed beehive. Sassoon, too, had a tough childhood after he was abandoned by his father and sent into an orphanage for six years. At 17, he was taken to a barber shop to become an apprentice by his determined mother, thus accidentally launching a spectacular career. In 1958, he opened his own Bond Street saloon. Sassoon is forever remembered for the gamin look he created for Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968), for which, it is said he was flown to Hollywood and paid a spectacular $5000.

Well, if there was recently a huge fuss about Indian couples searching for sperm donors at engineering institutes and business schools, in the UK there has been an equally big controversy over the fact that a fertility clinic was willing to pay up to 750 pounds for donor eggs from female students studying at Cambridge. Many were aghast as this meant that infertile parents were specifically looking for high achievers so that their children would possibly inherit their mother’s genes. This has also been happening in American Ivy League universities where up to $100,000 are being offered for donor eggs. The whole new-age fertility business has become like an industry; and though I have just written a novel about it, Origins of Love, I cannot still help but be astonished at the endless trade that goes on in the process of making babies. Everything, even children, are now designed and produced on demand, with a price tag.

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com