Word: bombay
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...number of other people have reached the same conclusion about the Bombay-born novelist. Early this year, 11 publishing houses fought over The Death of Vishnu, Suri's first novel, in a heated auction. W.W. Norton won, paying a $350,000 advance for the American rights. Since then, rights have been sold in 13 countries. The book will be published next January...
...desire to break through to the beauty elite can force women into unsavory situations. Anorexia and steroid abuse are increasing. There are many stories of fixed contests, nepotism and the casting couch. "Most of our people are out-of-towners," says Atul Kelkar, a manager of Smiles, a Bombay model-training agency. "I tell them that the amount of trouble you get into is directly proportional to your desperation...
When Sushmita Sen, the first Indian to be chosen Miss Universe, made her triumphant return to the subcontinent after the 1994 pageant, there were victory processions, gala parties and countless interviews. For fans like Yukta Mookhey, a teenager growing up in a middle-class suburb of Bombay, Sushmita was living a dream: she had been wrenched from an ordinary life and forged by the blast furnace of glamour and fame into a celebrity. Yukta, then 15, told her family that she too would one day wear a glittering crown. Her parents smiled at her adolescent fantasies, talked about college...
Those who don't make the national pageants, like the Miss India gala, have to settle for other, less glamorous affairs, including scores of neighborhood beauty shows, intercollegiate contests and parade-queen competitions. In Bombay earlier this month, for example, 16 women tramped up and down a lumpy catwalk in a damp, steamy tent vying for the title Miss Monsoon. "Please watch out for holes in the carpet," warned the choreographer during a run-through. "We don't want any falls." Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Alvares, one of 150 applicants, explained, "This is a real stepping-stone for me. Maybe...
Strong family ties also have helped. Vijay Goradia, who emigrated from Bombay in 1977 and now has a private petrochemical business in Houston with more than $600 million in revenues last year, says he could afford to take the entrepreneurial plunge because two brothers had preceded him to the U.S. and served as his safety net. "It gives you the spirit to be free, to take chances," he says...