Bunker Bulletin

No 278217;s in search of body oil. One of the make-up girls from Franck Provost hands him a bottle of hair serum instead, which he proceeds to apply on his chest. 8216;8216;All silicon,8217;8217; she winks.

And then the messy narrow room with its lumpy, West Delhi-style carved sofas and plastic white chairs is deserted once again as the contestants at Grasim Mr India rush outside and up on to the 35-ft-high stage at a suburban sports complex in Mumbai.

The make-up women change out of their regulation white tees, and into minis. They apply liner expertly, peering into the mirrors that envelop one wall. 8216;8216;Let8217;s go watch,8217;8217; one says.

The labels on the hanging jackets that stay behind sum up the usual story of small-town dreams. Dreams that stopped en route at Shelka in Ludhiana8217;s Puri Plaza and at Monalisa in Jammu8217;s Raghunath Bazaar.

The boys are back, it8217;s time for the suit strut. Shoes Sachdeva doesn8217;t know how to knot a tie. He looks to me for assistance. I roll my eyes. The make-up women are helpless too, finally an organiser steps in.

Twenty-one-year-old Amal Sehrawat from Haryana No 5 says every time he goes for an audition, they want to know if he8217;s related to Mallika.

The Provost pack are rooting for No 14, Karan Hukku. The 19-year-old8217;s bio says his mother8217;s his strength. A naturopath in Jaipur, she helped him get rid of his pimples. No wonder he likes her.

They8217;re gone again; only Freddy lingers. No 9, from Surat, can8217;t find his tag. 8216;8216;C8217;mon Freddy, forget it.8217;8217; And there8217;s peace again.

On stage, the Best Dressed tag goes to the pinstripes from the West8212;Sandeep Menon, a wicked baldie from Mumbai my favourite and Viraf Phiroz Patel from Pune. Baldie, No 23, says his four-button was designed by a Mumbai designer I haven8217;t heard of. Low profile, he adds.Alas, Baldie8217;s been eliminated to the background drone of 8216;8216;Tomorrow is another day and you are all winners8230;8217;8217;

8216;8216;You should have kept your hair, man,8217;8217; someone tells him. 8216;8216;I8217;m meant for something else,8217;8217; he shrugs. Sachdeva doesn8217;t make it to the final nine either. 8216;8216;I never give up,8217;8217; he says.

Now the buzz is different. Everyone8217;s on the cellphone, chugging cold coffee and chocolate cake; some gloomy souls are avoiding the camera.

Not 27-year-old Shaunak Choudhary. He8217;s ripe for a binge. 8216;8216;No booze, no smoking, no anything. It8217;s been a while. I8217;m going to swing the other way tonight,8217;8217; says No 25, a Delhi architect.Down to the final six. Hukku8217;s in, so is Viraf of the pinstripe fame, Sehrawat and Mr Best Smile Abhinav Shukla.

Shukla8217;s notes left backstage include a painstakingly written, fits-any-size introduction: 8220;It8217;s not destiny, it8217;s what you do. That8217;s me Abhinav Shukla, a 22-year-old engineer from Punjab who8217;s part athlete, part mechanic, part scientist and part philanthropist.8221;

On Ground Zero, last year8217;s winner Sunil Mann comes visiting, hugging one and all, lecturing in Hindi with a Haryanvi accent.

Nineteen-year-old Adil Ahmed Din from Kolkata is devastated. The baby of the contest didn8217;t make it. 8216;8216;You8217;re going on a date with me,8217;8217; an organiser tells him. But Adil looks like he8217;s going to cry. 8216;8216;Bechara sharaab bhi nahi peeta hai,8217;8217; Shaunak informs me.

Baldie8217;s won Most Popular. Dressy counterpart Viraf looks like he owns the room. Back on stage, finally, the winners are announced. Hukku8217;s second runner-up the make-up team is yelling and Kushal Tandon 8216;8216;an airhead,8217;8217; I8217;m told is first. Pune pinstripe Viraf snags the crown. 8216;8216;Told you,8217;8217; Nos 15 and 25 chorus.