STARS IN HER EYES

Pallavi's favourite model is Sushmita Sen and favourite designer is Ritu Kumar and is clear about the brands she wants to be associated with.

Twenty-five year-old Pallavi Negi,who is a regular working girl,has a serious crush on fashion. That is an understatement. Keen to become a print model she rues the fact that she doesn8217;t have the height for the ramp,she continuously lives inside an unfulfilled dream.

Her fashion obsession is in full play in the ladies washroom where she is often seen dolling up,her vanity kit laid out in glory around her. She has everything of what the beauty market sells us and most of what nobody ever needs. As frequently as she fusses around her beauty kit,Pallavi expresses curiosity about designer garments. Particularly if it is a not-so-traditional pair of trousers,a funky shirt,a pair of bizarre earrings that are clearly not from a mall. I save all my pocket money to buy 8216;expensive designer wear'8221; she says,emphasizing the word designer. As a contradiction,she dresses quite regularly herself: jeans and something is her primary office wear. Her interest in all things glamorous and only in things glamourous is hardly a secret. The moment Pallavi enters the office,she plucks out colour supplements from some newspapers and keeps them aside to pore over them through the day. They are her sustenance.

Last week,in the washroom where else,she told me of her desire to become a model. As much as she waxed about her ambition citing even specific brands she would like to be associated with,she fretted about her figure and skin: her skin wasn8217;t as good as it had been before Delhi8217;s brutal pollution hit it; worse,she had piled on kilos. She let out other itsy bits: why the leggy and busty Sushmita Sen is her favourite model and Ritu Kumar her favourite designer. Pallavi is candid enough to realise that if she does get a modelling job,it would only be an odd print campaign for her.

Born in Dehradun and brought up in Delhi,Pallavi Negi is one among thousands or is it lakhs? of young girls across India who queue up for modelling auditions and screen tests everyday with stars in their eyes. Those who don8217;t even get the chance to chase their dreams,live and relive imaginary,glamourous scenarios in their minds,rewinding them repeatedly. From where they view it,the glamour world is a pretty place,studded with a zillion promises of beauty as an everyday concern and solution.

But,is the reality,especially of small-time,occasional print modelling even half as beautiful? I wouldn8217;t think so. Which is why,for Pallavi8217;s sake,I hope she doesn8217;t stop treating the ladies toilet as her green room and the office as her studio.