where's a godrej locker when you need one?

you know the kind i'm talking about. every indian household has one...whether it's called a bureau, wardrobe, locker, or as it's known in the south, beerva. until now, a godrej locker was only meant to safeguard your valuables and keep them from prying eyes. methinks there's a deeper purpose to it: to safeguard the sanity of those who are suddenly and violently inflicted with the fashion atrocities committed by parameshwar godrej. for the moment, i'm willing to overlook the two extremely uncomfortable looking women in the extremely short dresses. and i'll put down their extreme discomfort to two things: parameshwar's leggings (aarrrrghhhhh!!) and parameshwar's trellis-fence corset/lingerie that is keeping the rest of her from spilling onto the streets. not to mention her amazon-like shoulders with that black armor. and there i will stop, because i do not want to make any personal remarks about her, neck upwards. nosiree. you won't get any comparisons from me about blow-dried horse's manes. or for that matter, about manly looks that would be a lion's pride. i don't hit that far below the belt. will some good samaritan, though, please explain to her the difference between underwear (not to be seen by the unsuspecting public) and outerwear (permissible in society)?

amrita redefines nip + tuck

first of all, yes, it is amrita arora. if you took away the anti-glare window panes, you'd be able to see that. then again, maybe amrita is wearing those for a reason. because now that she's been caught with:
- her pants up, but
- she's nipped her shirt short, while
- accompanying it with a necktie that is
- tucked into a wrap-around pinstripe waistcoat with
- stapled-on pebbles from the juhu beach,
amrita can use all the camouflage she can to keep from being recognized.

bappi lahiri meets karunanidhi

to be fair to this uufo, i don't think he expected such stiff competition from amrita rao. hence the agitation on his part about being upstaged by her. as evidence, i present the conversation between him and the calming influence of sooraj barjatiya.
blue uufo: WHAT IS THIS? I WANDET TO BE DIFFRANT FROM BHAPPI. THAT'S WHY I SHUNNED ALL GOLD. NOW THIS OOMAN COMES DRESSED ALL IN GOLD.
sooraj b: bhai mere, ooh, it's so nice and soft to the touch here...ahemmm getting back to the point, bhai mere, she is afterall heroine of vivaah. please to leave her alone.
amrita: where is bebo's babyface? why isn't he here to protect me from this blue bouncer?

letter: concerned citizens for mr. india

dear madam sri,

we write to you as representatives of a newly formed social consciousness organization. our message to you is this: just because your husband's name is boney, do you have to show off your own blood-red tipped, boney fingers like that? just because you have a svelte bod, can you shirk your duty towards draping it elegantly? does the fact that your husband can make a button meet both halves of his jacket for once mean you can throw a glittery shopping bag around you and believe it will put the attention back on you, in a positive way? oh sri, we know you're capable of much, much better than this. we've seen it here before. we're not craving for your mr. india days. but at least do stop dressing like you want to be a mr. india instead of a ms. india.

yours in much pain,
concerned citizens for mr. india

sallu the killadi*!

i will let my red-vested tamil friend do the talking here.

what sallu bai. big killadi* you 'ave becomed-a?
three three shirts you are wearing and all. 'ow it is pozible that you can wear no shurt sometime and sometimes you wear three three? only you can do it sallu bai. only you are killadi*!

*killadi: originally khiladi, roughly translates as "player" in more than one sense. from the original hindi "khel" meaning play or sport; khiladi = one who plays.

jism by john, fashion by cartoon network

this past week at lakme fashion week (lfw), everbody's favorite hunk (says who?) paraded new phashion. let me break it down for you.
t-shirt (and girlfriend's floral tights in the background): inspired by everybody's favorite powerpuff girl, blossom.
footwear: inspired by bathrooms everywhere in india (what? you've never heard of them referred to as 'bathroom chappals'?
jacket: retrieved from jackson heights (n.y.) i-day parade, circa aug. 12, 2006 with confetti and tar still tattooed on indelibly.

now, let's go back to blossom. this is what she looks like in reel life.



and now, let's look at her in real life here.



or, for that matter, here.

the defense rests.

everybody's favorite lahiri is still larger than life

back in march this year, bappi seemed to have lost more than just his mojo when we last saw him. the most recent economic report out of kinshasa shows a strong growth thanks to a resurgent demand for gold from a certain mr. lahiri. and, more importantly, Weight Watchers Inc. reports that the same mr. lahiri is NOT an enrolled member in any of its programs. let the 13 chins prevail.

baby a.b.: when you care enough to share

rumors have been rife for a while now about the chakkar between ash and the baby a.b.
what i didn't know was that it had reached such proportions that they'd started sharing objet d'affections. how else do you explain the sudden appearance of the violently pink tie? or ash's hair band from 7th grade on a.b.'s brushed-back locks? if you want to give your jaan to umrao, dear abhishek, that is perfectly fine by me. but can't you find anything more substantial or symbolic to say you are hair over heels...i mean head over heels for her? and don't take off your to shoes show me a pink-painted pinky toe in response. please. enough with the getting in touch with your feminine side already, i say.

b.r.b

salman is waiting in the wings. so are mithun, satish kaushik and sridevi. what an eclectic group. but work demands all my time now (yes, unfortunately i can't devote every waking hour to twinkling stars, much as i'd like to...i have to work at a "real" job). but, in the immortal words of arnold switchgear, i'll be back. soon.

umrao ki jaan kahaan gayi?

oh where are the days when rekha didn't look like she was coming out of mourning, or coming out to mourn? where have the days gone when she was still 50+ years old but never looked it? where have the days gone when she would at least weigh herself down with all of bappi lahiri's gold but would wear a smile in addition? i know we can't yearn for rekha to look like she did in umrao jaan again. but must we now get used to this?

from the diary of bebo, redux

i know people associate curtains and tablecloths with grandmothers. but look at maria in the sound of music. i mean, she tore down the curtains and made clothes for herself and ALL the kids. or look at scarlett o'hara (never mind that gone with the wind is a 100 years old). now, that was a spunky lady, who, in the face of bad times, tore down the curtains at tara and made herself new clothes to woo her man. so why can't i do the same? do you think shahid would say "frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn?"
can you keep a secret, dear diary? personally, i don't think baby-face can say anything like that to my face. i think he's secretly scared of me, and i like to keep it that way.

uufo ka chamatkar: is the shirt half in or half out?

yo!
'member jekyll and hyde? my fashion designer (ha, ha.) thought it'd be kyool to bring that to life again. right from the fluffed-up pickpocket hairdo of 1990's anil kapoor vintage to the symmetrically different halves of the shirt. notice how the right half of the shirt is crumpled and tucked out (whaddya think of that for a phrase with a difference?). and the left one is sauve and genteel like govinda in a safari suit. if you look closely, my differently-directed eyes might also give you the impression that i am london-looking, tokyo-talking. it's all part of the look, yaar.
and no, i'm not sheezofrenick.

spotted: leopard in disguise

let's get the minor blips out of the way first. yes, it is called a clutch, but must she actually, really clutch it with both hands as if (a) she's about to pass the baton to p.t. usha? (b) she's about to give rahul dravid some catching practice?
more importantly, though: what the heck was she thinking donning the leopard sack? what was the criterion? that some shade of the brown off the leopard's back would match a shimmer of her hair? or her double-fisted clutch? is that at least faux leopard skin? or are we to believe that preity accompanied salman on his deer-hunting trip and got herself a bonus on the side?
ethically or aesthetically, dear preity, being spotted in leotards might actually be better for you than being spotted in leopard skins. that's all i have to say.

tales of the uufo: the multifariously nefarious belt

from yesterday's lost & found section of the classified:
# missing: exercise belt, chrome (1), silver-coated pewter (1); misplaced after shooting completed of rocky IV. will reward if found with rarely used dentures. respond to sly stallone, los angeles, ca.
# missing: chromepet chrome blue lungi, patched with sports page of the Hindu, with pink chamanti glued on to it. also white banian. pl. 2 call mylapore madanakamarajan. cell: 9841175567. free rickshaw ride in return.

the new face of armani: droop dawg uufo

'sup y'all. here y'go.

it's all about melancholy,
that's life's folly.
(chorus: unh, hunh.)
a smile's so over-rated,
so don't get so elated.
(chorus: unh, hunh.)
's not about the cut of the fashion,
this suit's all about function.
(chorus: unh, hunh.)
my style is right on the money,
no less a body says so than armani.
(chorus: unh, hunh.)

p.s. i don't know the capless dude on my left. he's just a nobody.

feroze's fashion fundas

today's lesson is on shades:
when you spend a life dazzling and being dazzled, what you don't want to do is cover those sources of brightness. the flip side of allowing all that sunshine near your eyes is that you can encounter unmanageable shrubbery immediately north of your eyes. that's where you can break pieces off the solar panels from your friendly neighborhood observatory and stick'em where you don't want any celestial or earthly bodies to see you.
stay well.

the chunky horror show: part deux

letter to twinkle twinkle:
a few months back, i treated you to a new me, and you called it Experiments with Scuba Gear as Fashion-ccesories. i decided to forgive you by showing that i have a whole pirate's chest full of similar gear. here, let me push my auburn tresses back so you can ogle at it better. don't you just love how even if i became really chubby (not that i want to), i'd still be able to wear these and not have to worry about bags under the eyes after long nights of partying? not that i have to worry about those ever. i know my eyes pop a little weirdly out of these shades, but i'm talking to my opto...umm, you know those eye doctors, about it. so i'll have that fixed soon. but i do hope you love these deep-sea shades. anytime you want to jump into my deep-as-the-ocean beautiful eyes and lose yourself in them, just let me know, and i'll call in the fork-lift to have them taken off.
luv,
diya.

return of the pink panther: the bengali version

i'll give bipasha one thing: neither peter sellers nor steve martin could carry off a pink tutu. but what's up with the rest of her? from whither did the misshapen shades fit into the facial facade? what daft hair-dresser advised her that bunny ears were the next hot hirsute statement? and the layers of talcum powder! bips, you know that your appeal lies totally in your dark, smoldering looks. the dark complements the smoldering in a way that the talcum powder is now completely pouring cold water on. please, please, spare us such experiments in the future.

new anil kapoor release: my clothes' murder

i'll grant him that he's inside the studio, perhaps taking a break between takes. i'll even grant that those ugly black shoes are his at-work heels, not a deliberate fashion misstatement. (you can see the make-up boy about to hand him his pink keds...anil is always in touch with his feminine side, folks.) but since when did it become haute to wear jeans like riding breeches? and anil, it's great to see that you've given up on life on the gorilla-side, but do you really need to show proof of it with that low-cut blous...i mean shirt? do you realize it's actually cut so low that we can see the Return of the Dense Undergrowth? and what's up with the belt bling? and no, that smile is not beatific enough to take attention away from the rest of your tacky ensemble. not by a long shot.

a brief thank you...

to, among others, beth who loves bollywood and daddy's girl, for the linkage, commentage, and other miscellany-age that shows this blog's readership is not restricted to one person in new delhi, one in schaumburg, illinois, and one in detroit, michigan (you know who you are).