Curious Case: By Radhika Bhirani

Celebrity kids: Growing up in glare of shutterbugs In a video gone viral, she looks helpless and uncomfortable as she tries to hide her face and turns around to escape shutterbugs who go clickety-click while she waits for the doors of an elevator to open at a theatre's basement. That's Suhana Khan, Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan's 17-year-old daughter, experiencing the unwelcome attention of being a celebrity kid. The growing paparazzi culture in India's film industry is not sparing even the celebrities' children from the prying eyes of the cameramen, who are always chasing 'the first' and 'exclusive' pictures. It's often dismissed as 'the media's job', but actors and celebrities have come out clear about where one needs to draw the line. "They are not movie stars. They just happen to be a movie star's children... Don't assume they will be able to handle the media like I do... They get awkward," Shah R...

Splitsville In Times Of ‘Splitsvilla’ The ball for the seventh season of “Splitsvilla” on the idiot box is ready to roll, but in the real world of celebrities – Hollywood or Bollywood – it’s been quite a season of splitsville already! Love, breakups…it’s zindagi, I guess. Almost every now and then, we’re caught in the midst of ‘stories’ with celebrities – in Hollywood, Bollywood and all of these ‘woods’ – ‘calling it quits’, ‘parting ways’, ‘filing divorce’, ‘going separate ways’ and, yes, ‘heading to splitsville’. No fun, really. What’s the ‘entertainment’, I’m curious, in someone else’s heartbreak, sadness, loneliness and insecurity? But these, as one finds, meander as ‘news’, sometimes as screaming headlines, and often, as back page or late night ‘masala’. That Karisma Kapoor-Sanjay Kapur’s marriage has not worked out for the best has been a matter of constant intrigue over the past few years. Of late, one has seen increased reportage on the split of the Bollywood ‘Gre...

Meow! Let's get catty A look at Bollywood's infamous catfights through my eyes will seem as mundane as a morning cup of tea! Over the years, Bollywood paparazzi seem to have gone overboard with reportage on catfights in tinsel town -- Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma caught in a "catfight" over a make-up man; "catfight" between Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone over Saif Ali Khan -- it seems too consumed in something which perhaps every woman goes through at least once in a lifetime. But....it's a celebrity's life, I guess. From Jaya Prada and Sridevi, Sharmila Tagore and Raakhee, Bipasha Basu and Kareena Kapoor, Kareena and Priyanka Chopra, Sonam Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai, Amrita Rao and Esha Deol... the list can go on. Many have pointed at Kareena as being the 'queen' of catfights in Bollywood, but the actress, as straightforward as she is, has gone on record to say that she isn't here to "make friends"....

Yummy mummy? Hey, is your mummy yummy? Yikes! It's indeed as ridiculous and funny as it sounds, but a "yummy mummy" seems to be the in thing in Bollywood, what with Shilpa Shetty, Karisma Kapoor, Malaika Arora Khan, Lara Dutta, Twinkle Khanna and Celina Jaitly flaunting their svelte and flawless post-pregnancy figures with elan. I'd cringe if someone called my mummy "yummy", and my dad wouldn't be happy either! But that's how the wave of change seems to be - at least in the urban milieu, where mothers sometimes look like an 18-year-old's best friend. Sometimes, it's hard to even tell who's who! No, I'm not complaining as long as it doesn't beat the purpose of motherhood. It's a wonder how these women manage to shed the excess weight, regain their pre-natal frames in no time and bounce back into business. How do they manage to divide time between work, baby and hubby; and how do they live up to the extend...

Talking business -- not just Bollywood's star wives!  So, you thought having a 'trophy husband' was enough? That you could revel in his popularity, splurge his moolah and lounge at beauty parlours and kitty parties all day? Get a reality check, dear ladies! Take a cue from Bollywood's star wives club -- names like Gauri Khan, Twinkle Khanna and Adhuna Akhtar always had the choice to do all that and more, but instead, they chose to follow their passion and become entrepreneurs. Add to that, names like Suzzane Khan, Mana Shetty and Shilpa Shetty. Their fields are different -- from interior designing and hairstyling to wellness clubs and philanthropy -- but to the curious me, a common factor binds them all: the desire to carve their own niche; a niche away from the shadow of their husbands' success stories. Take, for instance, Gauri Khan, wife of Bollywood 'badshah' Shah Rukh Khan. A devoted wife and mother, Gauri's tryst with in...

'Hey, are you Indian?' I have invariably faced this inquisitiveness whenever I have travelled out of my native India. An affirmative "yes" follows, but what sadly ensues oft is a vagary of perception about the Indian lifestyle, clothes, people and also animals! Are Hindi films to be blamed, I wonder. "You're allowed to wear pants, is it?" a 40-something American woman, my neighbour during a recent flight from Newark to Delhi asked me as she took a closer look at what I was wearing for the 16-hour long journey. "Of course," I said with a sense of obviousness. Just around five days before my flight, after savouring a fulfilling Thai meal, I stood against the changing colours of the hyped Empire State Building, to do what most excited tourists, and not just from India, would do - get photographed for a happy memory. But there, in the most unexpected way, came an unsavoury remark from a passenger on the move in a cab. "...