In Search Of The Round Figure

But I could bet that there wouldn't have been too many volunteers for the game this particular young lady wanted to play. To start with, we all felt vertically challenged, change that to vertically intimidated. Then again, we felt otherwise awestruck by this tribe of ladies up there: these women (girls really—the oldest was 22, the youngest 17) seemed awfully self-assured, even cocky. They certainly wouldn't need a male shoulder to cry on. (And even if they did, would any male shoulder be high enough?) What has happened to Indian women? They were graceful, submissive and certainly in need of masculine assurance and solidity. Plus they were petite, rounded and, if truth be told, certainly in need of a missed dessert or two.

Where has this new breed sprung from? You see them at the Miss India contests—and at the Look of the Year and the Gladrags and whatever contest—svelte, assured, vertically rampant and terribly in need of a good meal. Where did the solid Punjabi kudi disappear? Or the Bengali rosogulla? Or the South Indian idli? Oyo yo.

If you travel Air India now, at least half its air hostesses are this modern breed, so thin that three of them can walk abreast (wrong word) in the aisle and not trip over protruding luggage or elbows. (Many of the other half, incidentally, consist of Punjabi kudis etc, now all in their robust 40s).

I would be the last one to bemoan the passing away of the rotund, helpless, subservient sati-savitri Indian woman. But is this the option? These emaciated Barbie dolls, who could only be distinguished by whether they were 5'9" or 6'0" clones of Kate Moss? Perhaps something has been lost in the translation.