Mother World: Aishwarya Rai’s Pregnant

So India’s contribution to otherworldly beauties is pregnant. My first thought was that it wasn’t either parent who announced this news but the grandfather (and indisputably the more famous Bachchan). I wonder if someone were to ask the younger Bachchan how come he didn’t say anything, his reply would be, “No Idea!” Unfortunately I don’t know anyone who’d care enough to retort, “Get Idea!”

Aishwarya Rai is this generation’s dreamgirl (though I still think Hema Malini, the original, trumps her). A sweetheart is your own personal Aishwarya Rai and a woman with a bad attitude may be sneered at with the words,

“She thinks she’s Aishwarya Rai!”

Now I wonder what the holders of such popular notions will think now. There is a certain reluctance to objectify women at least openly, after they’re married and have kids. La Rai has certainly passed the first of those and still reigns supreme in the Indian man’s dreams. But what now, when this same man is faced with the sight of a baby bump and possibly bloated arms?  Will the siren suddenly be placed on the Mother India pedestal? We’ll just have to wait till next March to tell.

On a personal note, it is rather heartening to see a woman in the limelight follow the unconventional path of marrying late, marrying a younger man (well, by a year), continuing a career where she clearly outshines her spouse and doesn’t start spurting out babies immediately. Motherhood at thirty-eight, definitely cool. Well done, Ms.Rai.