Not that diary

And that too 'India's Number One Fairness Cream'. Mind you the advert outside the suburban rail station had such a big picture of you and those very words in Font Size 150 that I could not even spot what brand it was representing ! Now understandably, in a country obsessed with the colour of skin, the one cosmetic that probably out-sells all is the ubiquitous fairness cream. Till very recently these creams were mainly targeted at young women. Guaranteed to make you super-fair in 3 weeks and help you grab a husband instantly. It has never ceased to amaze me how deep-rooted the desire for 'fair women' who would generate 'fair offspring' is. I think recently someone realised that ... err.... maybe you need both the woman and the man to be light-skinned to be (somewhat) guaranteed that they will generate light-skinned offspring ! Heading back a couple of centuries, it appears we were a civilisation of brown to dark-brown folk. And then came the invasions ...

This is not the average winter temperature in Ol’ Blighty that I refer to. It is the much studied ‘six degrees of separation’ theory. And the kick I got at chopping 3 degrees off it this morning. It all started with the daily chit-chat with my ‘kaamwaali bai’ or cleaning lady. Her friend is the ‘koodewaali bai’ or house-garbage collector. And this 2 nd bai picks up rubbish daily at Shahrukh’s house. Oh yeah I totally call him by first name now that I’m technically a neighbour on Mount Mary Road in Bandra ;-) That's Shahrukh Khan- King of Bollywood for those who still haven’t heard of him. So essentially that’s 3 degrees of separation with Mr Khan. Jai Ho to the world of bai s! Now getting to 2 degrees will be dead easy, all I have to do is befriend the koodewaali bai directly. But one degree… hmmm….. no I’m not planning to disguise myself as her and pick up his rubbish. Really there have to be some limits to celebrity-voyeurism. I've never been a groupie of any sor...