Kingfisher Beer has put its ‘swimsuit’ calendar online. It’s just like the CNN site which annoys me daily (‘we interrupt you with breaking news: Model of the Day!’), but with lotus pads: zen cheesecake, if you will. There are so many floating flowers in the frame, you’d think it was pitching feminine products instead of beer.
The launch party attained this pinnacle of cheese: Salman Khan (1) in a muscle shirt (2) ripping cheetah print (3) off a bikini calendar (4). Behind him are a large contingent of underfed (5), blue-eyed Anglo-Indians, those ubiquitous khakhi-suited, pot-bellied sipahis (6), and Vijay Mallya (7), who’s way too old to be playing Richard Branson.
Beat that, Hasselhoff.
From the same photographer, here’s Aamir Khan whoring out timepieces in Mangal Pandey attire and cornrows, and a very funny wireless campaign with Javed Jaffrey.
wow…that Pia Trivedi chick has legs!
This is Page 3 kitsch at it’s very best. No one remembers when Mallaya stopped being tongue-in-cheek to downright slimy. Note the shit-eating grin above.
lol I saw Aamir Khan pics posted all over a Titan store in Bangalore. He looks…interesting…with a mustache and corn rows.
Saw some of the photos and it is funny seeing some weedy guys doing the badass routine – need to eat some dudh badaam and put some muscle on their rumps.
about this mallya guy – i know he made news with his plane order but man.. he needs a better brand manager? I cant imagine there being a market segment that large of businessmen in mid-age crises, with an inclination for the skinny hinglish kind.
I pity the foo’
Haha! I love the pic you’ve used Manish – you’re such a censoring prude! No no, I know you just erring on the side of caution, right?
Ah the Kingfisher calendar. Every year, soon after its release, tissue paper sales transiently rocket all over the dia-sprayer. Perhaps that was too far. But one thing remains true in my mind – if you want to sell sex, the one group I would aim for would be South Asian fellas. I use South Asian deliberately here as this monomanual pursuit really is one that unites the subcontinent. Sad really.
And lastly – they’re not all blue-eyed Anglo-Indians Manish, plenty of them aren’t Indian at all!
Now I need some alone time.
I dont think Mallya’s associated with Kingfisher beer anymore. I think he may have sold off his stake in UB, after ofcourse screwing it up. He probably still owns the brand and is using it for his airlines biz…much alike to Richard Branson and Virgin Records.
Gotta keep it SFW 😉
interesting pics. most of them are bodies and no faces. i had to read the model’s name in the credit to figure out is it is a South Asian.
My mom would be shaking her head….
this is not the way i want brown chix to represent. though at least a lot of them are half-browns. ladies to be focusing on an A+, not T&A.
June 2003– what is on Yana Gupta’s face?!?
Sorry razib, do I detect a bit of an old skool mentality there? ‘Chix’ should be working for A+ grades and not becoming models?! And are you insinuating that because they’re half brown they’re cheaper?
Explain yourself sir!
I’m completely up for Indian girls being able to do whatever they want to do. Realise that becoming a model in a place like India is still very tough – I don’t mean competition-wise, I mean having to deal with leacherous Indian men. Models from the West don’t have to put up with things that Asian (the broader meaning of Asia here) models do.
If Indian girls want to study, all power to them, if they want to be actresses or eye candy, why not? I DO want brown chix representing in this way and not just for selfish reasons. For many years I have been very keen for Indian women to excel in all fields; not just business or academia. If modelling and so forth becomes more legitimate and regulated, the safer it will be for all those involved.
India’s attitude towards sex and specifically towards women is a terrible burden that I hope gets changed soon.
Bongsy, you are my hero 🙂
-asian girl in non-traditional, not-exactly-socially-acceptable-to-elders career
Damn, people, Razib the atheist was obviously dosing on tongue-in-cheek. Outrage away if it makes you feel better.
DesiDancer, my guess is a nose ring chain.
I didn’t realize I was outraged…I thought BB gave a lovely speech that touched on something I’ve dealt with IRL. I was daydreaming about having BB give his speech to the next auntie that gets in my a$$ over my vocational choice.
good eye, Manish. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if she had just blown her nose or what…
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I’m useless at spotting sarcasm online. Sorry.
But the half brown thing still cuts a little close to the bone!
The snark is about underfed, + the Bollyobsession with light skin, not about half brown per se.
Manish has obviously been scrutinising those pictures very closely indeed 😉
(just kidding)
=>”-asian girl in non-traditional, not-exactly-socially-acceptable-to-elders career”
DesiDancer — what career would that be ? I’m new to SM.
For real…whatever happened to libertarianism and free markets and all that?
p.s. I dont buy the sarcasm bit.
She’s the diaspora’s answer to Heidi Fleiss.
Can’t get much more non-traditional than that.
yes, that’s right, just like BB said (he’s a great client, incidentally)
seen my website?
Such painful things I do for our readers… 😉
=>”She’s the diaspora’s answer to Heidi Fleiss.”
Something tells me you guys are pulling my leg….
Top article Manish. You go girl.
I’m just speculating (and probably stating the obvious), but it must take a hell of a lot of guts on the part of the Indian (or, Indian-based) supermodels involved in this sort of thing, considering the somewhat negative and disrespectful attitudes many people (especially, but not exclusively, men) back in India have towards women who are perceived to be “too westernised” or “too liberated”.
You can imagine the kind of hassle they would face from relatives or “the broader public” in general, at least with regards to the more conservative “middle class” — unless their lifestyles were so rarified that they had relatively little contact with the mainstream population. Although from what I can tell, your average Indian back there may be more used to being exposed to this kind of thing via the recent liberalisation evident in some music videos and Bollywood films, such as Mallika Sherawat and her genre.
(Having said that, Mallika has apparently been suffering from sexual harassment by strangers because of how she’s depicted in her films).
Just a thought. Kudos to them for having the guts to do this in a still-relatively-conservative culture, anyway.
uh, yeah, i was joking 🙂 i like being righteous sometimes, it feels good, thinking you are morally superior to everyone else because you don’t have the same opportunities or talents!
and poking fun at some of the bizarro burn-the-daughter-in-law-whore mentalities that i’ve spied slipping into the waters around here on occasion. one time i did this some idiots even started agreeing with me!
But the half brown thing still cuts a little close to the bone!
no prob man, i apologize if offense was taken. i have stated multiple times over at my own blog that i think browns should intermarry with other groups and disappear. this is self-interested of course, i don’t want my own children to feel like they are peculiar 🙂
Thanks, BB!
yeah, seriously. I don’t roll like Mallaika Sherawat or anything, but it’s quite the on-going issue that I (gasp!) perform on stage and it’s not bharatanatyam…
It’s a double standard– it’s ok to beat off to Aishwariya Rai (or whomever), but aunties/uncles don’t want an Aishwariya in their own family, seems to be my experience.
Damn.