In the past few years, I have noticed this trend towards more curvaceous, booty-luscious and in general more flabbier heroines in Bollywood movies. The very first time this trend started was with the short and stocky Rani Mukherjee in 'Hello Brother'. There was this one song where she was wearing a short skirt and showing off her thunder thighs. Yes she has improved considerably(read- lost a little bit of weight and started wearing sarees) but this bug seems to have bitten many others.

More recent in my memory is the most beautiful woman in the world, Aishwarya Rai.
'Kajra Re' was an absolutely wonderful song, primarily because of the Big B- Small B combine. But what role ash's love-handles and vivacious curves played in the popularity of the song, I do not know.

And finally I was convinced of this trend, after I watched 'Omkara' yesterday. Bipasha Basu as 'Billo Chamanbahar' was downright overweight and was still showing her midriff. Quite contrary to what she said in an episode of MTV Stylecheck quite recently.(don't ask me why I was watching that show)

Kareena Kapoor as 'Dolly' in the same film wasn't one to be left behind. Her jhatkas and matkas as she walked with the cummerbund towards Ajay brooding Devgan were thundering. And he was just salivating at the thought of grabbing them. Shucks! show some restraint on television dude!!!

Till date I had noticed this trend of flabby female leads in movies only in the South Indian Film Industry. This has been justified by saying that south indian men prefer their women to be flabby and maybe even fat. But some heroines might have taken this a little too far(eg. Khushboo, Rambha and Ramya Krishnan- I can't believe they are actually hired)

But is this trend slowly spreading from the South to the North as well. Seems so from the movies and the heroines. Does the average hindi film goer like his women fat or does he still like them with the hour-glass figures? I don't know the answer but obviously, the directors must have some sense of what the audience want before investing a couple of million rupees!

Another reason for this latest trend could be that cinema is today more about representing reality rather than creating a make-believe place where we could all get immersed for 3 hours. So in this move towards reality, the characters too end up reflecting real people like you and me. And this is only my personal opinion but Indians are Fat. I don't have access to any national database of weight records but by just looking around I can say, that a whole lot of us are definitely overweight if not fat. So to make the characters on the screen look like us, they too have to become a little plump.

Then why just the females and not the males? Because they are the ones who are most noticed in a movie. The guys are always oogling at them, the ladies are looking at what they wear, how they speak etc. so that they can just go ahead and replicate it. So as long as the guy delivers his lines well, flexes his muscles a little and smashes up a few goons, his work is done. What I mean to say is that he is not subjected to the intense scrutiny that the heroines attract. The moment the lady comes on screen, all the eyes follow her movement. She is under terrible pressure to appeal to everyone.

Okay I personally prefer women who are on the plumper side. Maybe it's the south-indian in me, maybe it's just the indian in me, but that's that. So yeah I did like all the aforementioned heroines though many of my friends and even the media thought them unsightly. So whether they put on weight purposely for the role or just got fat, I don't care. I liked them in the movie and I look forward to more. Of course this does not mean that they grow fat and then turn up in a bikini. NO. It should be done tastefully and in the right setting. Leave the bikini stuff to the likes of Celina Jaitley or Udita Goswami.

--------Looking forward to seeing both Ash and Bips in Dhoom2. Supposedly they are sporting the bronzed, super-sexy look.