INDIAN GLAMOUR GETS A PHIRANGI FLAVOUR

The identities of the Italian and the South African provide much grist for the chatterati chats but the guessing game has not yielded their names so far

Globalisation has a new avataar altogether. The face of India has begun dotting the celeb circuit in the West with one Miss India after another linking her toned arm to that of a phirang boyfriend. The glamour girls are are making it trendy to be an Indian in a way that Sabeer Bhatia and Shah Rukh Khan could not — by sashaying their way into the Big League.

Lara Dutta, Miss Universe 2000, is the current favourite of Derek Jeter going by the latest reports in the international magazine Newsweek. Jeter is the star pitcher for the New York Yankees and makes around $ 12 million a year. Dutta is featured as one of the Major League Babes in an inforgraphic on the baseball circuit. Jeter was apparently dating popstar Mariah Carey before Dutta earlier.

Datta is only the latest or the last known. It’s no secret in the celeb circuit that the tall and dusky Sheetal Mallar, once chosen the Look of the Year 1995 and now the face of the Maybelline range of high-end cosmetics, has an Italian boyfriend. Mallar Mama Mia! But before you can say that, comes along model Vidisha Pavate, who having slogged it out on the ramp, prefers the company of a South African photographer after work. The identities of the Italian and the South African provide much grist for the chatterati chats but the guessing game has not yielded their names so far.

Wait on. The sporty gal who nearly made it to the international beauty circuit but lost out because she did not give the expected saccharine-sweet bit about being inspired by Mother Teresa is now with a phirang too. Madhu Sapre was spotted less than two weeks back on the arm of an European at some of the swanky little bars in Colaba. The celeb circuit take is that they are going steady but Sapre tells nothing at all. And, Diana Hayden, now the L’Oreal girl, went to President Bill Clinton’s party for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with the CNN news anchor Riz Khan.

While these romances are lighting up the circuit, what most people do not believe is Dutta’s drive for Derek Jeter. Her long-standing boyfriend, the Bhutanese Kelly Dorji, who is also a top-ranking ramp model and host of a television show, was apparently with her in New York two weeks back. And, Dutta is supposed to touch down in Mumbai in the coming few weeks just to spend time with him. Says a livid Dorji: “This is completely untrue. The media just loves to make all these things up.”

Dutta’s friends here also deny the New York romance. Says one of them: “This Derek thing can’t be true at all. Kelly Dorji went to NY to be with her just a fortnight back.” True or not, Dutta has managed to put Indian glamour on the international circuit in a way that all the Miss Universes and Miss Worlds before her did not.

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