Bollywood Wannabes
Every unmarried young man in India wants to be a Bollywood star.
It’s obvious in the way they dress – all flared collars, loud shirts, stonewashed jeans and winkle-picker shoes, not to mention the assortment of Travolta-esque slicked-back hairstyles.
This is all very well, but in a society where arranged marriage is the norm, attitudes towards women are not what they are in the West,
It wasn’t our imagination tonight that Simona was attracting a lot of unwelcome and frankly intimidating stares from a group at the table beside us. We were all set for an enjoyable New Year’s but felt that it might be better instead to leave the restaurant, eat elsewhere and head back to the hotel.
It’s a strange place where scantily-clad screen stars can bump, grind and gyrate to their hearts’ content, but are not allowed to kiss; and where young men, like everywhere else, yearn to emulate their movie idols, yet are not really allowed to date.
