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1st Quarter, 2004

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Divas All

Text by Shirin Mehta. All photographs exclusive to Verve.

PUBLISHED: Volume 12, Issue 1, First Quarter 2004

What does it take to be a diva? More than success, attitude, glamour. Verve sifts through its very own pages and lists some sure-fire winners.

Click any thumbnail for a larger image.

	‘Two years after winning the crown at Sun City, she still has the world at her feet’ wrote Verve, with stunning pictures of the budding actress by Prabuddha Das Gupta. The ‘still’ being largely prophetic, for Ms Gorgeous continues to break hearts on screen and off it. The press may love her, hate her, leave her, take her, but for us, she remains a prophecy come true. "Heal yourself and move on with the flow of life since everything is transient, nothing lasts forever," said our beautiful diva when we caught her in pensive mode, in London. Currently, she is on location for her latest crossover offering, Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice. Hollywood, here comes Ash!

	We put supermodel, Madhu Sapre, in beads and nothing else and she made a smashing cover for Verve’s second issue. Veteran of the catwalk, she stalks fashion ramps with an upbeat quality all her own. Settled in Italy, the industry’s best toned body, recently made an acting debut in Kaizad Gustad’s Boom, an indifferent film but a good beginning for the not-so-traditional Marathi mulgi. Controversies have dogged her since, as a Miss India and contender for the Miss World crown, she stated, unrepentant, that given a good sum of money, she would build a sports stadium. Come on, appreciate the girl, gals!

	Responsible actor, former member of the Rajya Sabha, political and social activist, champion of slum dwellers and screen-struck hopefuls, Shabana Azmi is all these and much more. The unprecedented, five-times National Award winner, has been the star of the art cinema since Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, mostly credible in Bollywood’s masala offerings and has now taken to playing mom with aplomb as in Khalid Mohammed’s Tehzeeb. Never having taken her star status particularly seriously she is currently excited at the prospect of being real-life backstage hand in Aparna Sen’s first Hindi film, Gulel. Well, you can’t keep a good actor behind the scenes forever, say we. ‘Big screen diva’ we called her in Verve’s fifth issue. And, were we right!

	Is there anyone who does not want to own an Anjolie Ela Menon painting? Verve knows of no one! The diva of the paintbrush, Menon’s images seem to emerge from a hazy past — beautiful women with gossamer veils, pictures of Brahmins, old houses…a wonderful tryst with nostalgia. Her exhibitions are a sell-out and her paintings, the object of the viewers’ undying envy. A role in the powerful Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), coveted for her humour and her intellectual abilities as for her vigorous brush strokes, ‘Aunty Julie’ is hot property in all spheres.

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