LAILA Once upon a time, if you were thin you were out. International models like Anjali Mendes and Marie Lou Philips had to flee to Paris to find their fame and fortune. Branded ugly ducklings in their home country, today the very people who had spurned them fall all over themselves to woo them back.But then, much water has flowed under the bridge since those days. Though the waif look has been around for a decade, in India it has taken a long time in coming. The Ruebenesque curves of Asha Parekh and Mala Sinha, once ideals of womanly allure have given way to the slim-hipped well-toned look a la Madhu Sapre. Thousands of teenagers are joining aerobics classes and consulting dieticians all in an attempt to look like a fashion model - thin, thin and thin. Though the image police in the West have recently taken to deriding Kate Moss and Twiggy for starting an epidemic of anorexia, the starved-almost-concentration-camp look is what is making waves in India. Thin women no longer suffer the indignities of indifference and a low value in the marriage market.Dr Narendra Pandya, plastic surgeon at Jaslok Hospital, feels that more and more people in India are conscious of international trends. And with affluence and the easy availability of trained personnel, especially in the past 10 years, it has become easy to achieve that look. Then there are innumerable women approaching middle age who seek his advice, egged on by their husbands. These are the same women with average well-rounded bodies, who seek the elixir of youth, inspired by teenagers in the glossies. "Through liposuction and silicon implants, we try to achieve for them what the artists would call the near-perfect figure," he says.Tracing the trend, model coordinator Rasna Behl says that the focus from a fuller form to a slim one set in in showbiz as the swimsuit gained predominance. "Even a dancer like Helen was appreciated in skimpy cabaret clothes despite being well endowed, till Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi came on the stage to splash about with their perfect ten bodies," says she. Rasna remembers a time in the '60s when the only way to judge participant's legs at beauty pageants was to ask the girls to lift their saris.Yesteryear model Anna Bradmeyer feels that in the past pleasantly plump was okay "because fashion shows were more entertainment, unlike today where the emphasis is on a professional display of couture. The decline of the sari or the improvisation of it, also gave a platform for skinny models. The wave came about from the overseas fashion industry in the mid-'80s," she says. The common woman, seduced by the glamour of looking good, sought a new look.And with models becoming larger than life thanks to the boom in multimedia, the lure of the perfect form gained ground.Karminder Kaur, ramp model and aspiring actress, says that voluptuousness is not a part of the vocabulary anymore "You are either fat, or perfect". And she too watches her weight with a strict eye. "There are too many critics in the fashion industry," says she. "And trends are set by top designers who mostly do Western outfits, which requires one to be bone thin. "The big body may not be in vogue today, but will be as soon as Paris dictates. I have not been a Twiggy forever, but lately have dropped more weight than I have done for a while," says Bradmeyer.However, the desire for perfect forms has not affected the genetics. While too many flaws are not welcome, and are corrected in their individual lifetime, the ball seem to have been set rolling for the next generation as well. With Paris calling the shots, that is.It figures!Let's take a walk down memory lane. Meena Kumari, Suraiya, Nargis, Mala Sinha, Rakhee, Asha Parekh. All voluptuous, well-endowed women. Leading stars of the silver screen.Then came Parveen Babi, Zeenat Aman, Smita Patil, Rati Agnihotri, Kim and the rest of the soda-bottle bunch.Close at their heels came the sirens from the south, with figures that drove Indian men to a frenzy of lust and longing.Currently reigning movie queens range from Karisma Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty alongside Manisha Koirala, Madhuri Dixit, Tabu and Juhi Chawla. The final analysis: not one Twiggy in sight. Even more astonishing results come about in the random surveys conducted by magazines and papers from time to time. Almost every one of them have revealed that at any given time, men and women rate Madhubala as the most perfect woman there has ever been.Now. What are you supposed to infer?People are confused? Designers are confused? Or that the fashion world is not making clothes for the full-bodied Indian woman who likes her full chest and wide hips? Case in point: Miss Universe Sushmita Sen may be the ideal clotheshorse but her film debut Dastak was a flop. And if Bollywood is not the barometer of the masses, then perhaps haute couture needs to to re-examine their compass. Maybe they are heading in the wrong direction.
