On Television

Ms. Rai’s agents have successfully marketed her as ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’ which has surely created a buzz around her. Ash’s splash, driven by hard-nosed marketing shoved her onto shows such as 60 Minutes, David Letterman and The Oprah Winfrey Show. It is precisely here that I choose to take particular umbrage as an Indian woman. Hollywood-headed Ash, who considers herself, an ambassador of Indian women was quizzed by Oprah on some ‘real’ issues and she came across as a giggly, simpering star doing no justice whatsoever to the image of the modern Indian woman. Perhaps she should stick to gifting saris to the Americans. Moreover how she should ever handle the prying paparazzi in Hollywood seems quite a mystery judging by her ‘media hounded, much beleaguered’ Greta Garboish laments.