Beauty and the beach

It was a simple question really, though the answer wasn’t that easy. The pre-Diwali weekend was about to start, cards and alcohol would flow in the capital’s posh farm-houses. But there really could be only one answer, no matter how much one contemplated.

And so the next I knew, I was boarding a Kingfisher Airlines flight to Chennai, in order to catch another flight to Port Blair in the Andaman islands on the south-eastern tip of this republic.

But what was the question, you ask. Well, one of Vijay Mallya’s colleagues asked if this magazine would like to go and attend the last phase of the 2008 Kingfisher calendar shoot with ace photographer Atul Kasbekar and some very good-looking girls, out in the Andamans.

Pretty silly question really. And I came very close to grabbing the editor’s feet, pleading with him to send me. But soon, to my horror, I found out that the ‘Incredible India’ campaign put out by the Ministry of Tourism, forgot to mention how incredibly tedious (not to mention expensive) it is to get to some of the more beautiful parts of the country.

From Port Blair, getting to Havelock Island, where the shoot was taking place, involved a twohour ferry ride to follow-up the four-and-a-half hours of flying and a night-long vigil at Chennai airport.

The adventure didn’t end there. Once at Havelock Island, where 90 per cent of the population is Bengali, the journey involved taking a taxi determined to rip-off tourists, to Radhanagar beach where the shoot was happening. But, once there, even though the sun was setting, (“perils of one time zone”, said Kasbekar), things started moving fast.

Kasbekar, however, was not too excited at seeing the bikini clad models. The former student of Chemical Technology from Mumbai University, Kasbekar still maintains that he wandered into photography and seeing girls in skimpy clothes is no incentive. “If you have seen one you have seen them all, ” he laughed.

The models for the shoot were jumping around in two-piece swimsuits, but Vijay Mallya, flamboyant liquor baron, airline boss and Formula One team-owner—took the spotlight, riding the waves on the beach with aplomb. Textile magnate Gautam Singhania was also there, ostensibly to discuss the logistics of setting up the fan club for Mallya’s Force India F1 team, but hardly any discussions happened on that front.

This will be the sixth Kingfisher Calendar, and Mallya sees the calendar as a tremendous avenue to launch careers and showcase Indian beauty and fashion. But this was the first time that the calendar was being shot in India. “Before anybody asked me why we had not done a calendar in India yet, we did one,” Mallya pointed out. “The calendar can take a face and make it very famous.

Deepika (Padukone) was known before she did the calendar, but after the calendar, she has become a supermodel and now hopefully a Bollywood superstar.” Mallya is particularly proud that the calendar has twice been voted the ‘best’ in the world, and says: “I would like to keep it that way.”

Of course, shooting it in a vast country like India made the shoot a logistical nightmare, spread over 22 days at various locations including Ladakh and Goa (swimsuits in Ladakh?). The last phase in the islands was delayed because Mallya wanted to attend them. Monikangana Dutta, one of the girls modelling for the shoot, was obviously enjoying herself. “It is great to be involved with a brand such as the Kingfisher calendar, but the shoots are a bit exhausting,” she said.

The rest of the girls were having an equally fun time, but as Kasbekar pointed out, the guys behind the camera do most of the ‘grunt work’. So to relieve tension, the crew played practical jokes on the models. “During the Ladakh shoot, we convinced some of the girls that they use a different currency in Ladakh, and well, they fell for it,” a crew member quipped on the journey back, before adding, “It was Atul’s idea.”

Before we had to leave the island paradise for the long haul back to the capital, Mallya invited us on board the ‘Kalizma’, which had come to the Andamans. “I am really glad they chose this place to shoot,” he said, “People travel all over the world, but some of the most beautiful places are in our own country.” And just like that, he decided to extend his trip by a couple of days. Why? “I think I would like to spend Diwali here,” was his simple reply.

You can do certain things if you own your own yacht (or three), but then again, this is Vijay Mallya we are talking about. “I want to change, I want to go to sleep before midnight and get up early in the morning,” he said, making quite a genuine face. This reporter could not help but smile, and he was not alone. “No, I will do it, you will see,” he insisted. Still, one really doubts if the night sky is about to lose one of its favourite sons.