Shobhaa De | No Women or Ukraine, but Trump Is Smarting

Guess who dropped the biggest Bric? Now that the fun and games are over (…are they?), we can all sit back and get a giggle out of the sideshows that go hand in hand with ambitious global events and are invariably more instructive than the official main act. Take the optics. Hello uncles!

Where were the women?? They exist! In case you haven’t noticed! Where was the missing colour? But there you were — so many of you — in dead boring attire, playing mine is bigger than yours. It was so exaggeratedly and comically Alpha, someone should have kept smelling salts handy for the faint-hearted. BRICS 2026 has been declared a gigantic diplomatic coup for India — mainly in India and by Indians.

Theek hai. Even the most strident critics readily admitted it was a casting coup if not a geo-political one. Imagine getting 11 A-List Hollywood Actors to come up on stage and share an Oscar awarded to a multi-star cast ensemble blockbuster. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s magnum opus was described as a ‘’coming of age moment for Brics@20.” The agenda was strictly vegetarian - American Turkey was pointedly missing. So what? World leaders rushed back to their suites to order Room Service.

Will come to the Shudh Shakahari banquet menu later. First off, let’s talk entertainment. Two world leaders broke into song, and no, they did not croon music from their own countries. Plus, it wasn’t a duet.

Instead, both men picked Punjabi and Urdu/Hindi popular songs from India. Indonesian President Prabow Subianto attempted “Gallan Goodiyan” which loosely translates to “sweet talk, loving chatter, friendly conversation”, possibly to send out a lovey-dovey message to the host (India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi). Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim was more direct. He sang a Kishore Kumar classic, “Khwaab ho tum ya koi haqqeeqat”. Errr… here’s the literal translation — “Are you a dream or are you a reality?” Modiji may have blushed… disappointingly enough, he didn’t respond with his favourite Gujarati song.

While the watching world tried to make a song and dance out of the tightly orchestrated summit, with its inbuilt implications and complications, the “New Delhi Declaration”, was a huge hit with the Big Boys backing it. Global South solidarity got further strengthened as leaders negotiated a delicate diplomatic tightrope walk, making sure not to tread on each other’s toes. Given the presence of top dogs representing nations engaged in active hostilities (Iran and the United Arab Emirates), this indeed was the icing on PM Modi’s eggless cake.

Ooops, that reminds me of the banquet which started with khandvi (besan roll, ok?) and ended with shahtoot phirni (doodh pudding, ya!). Chef Sanjeev Kapoor defended the almost “sattvic” menu by saying something like, “Vegetarians do not consume non-vegetarian food, but all non-vegetarians eat vegetarian food.” Sorry, Boss, but a good host thoughtfully caters to the palate of his honoured guests. What if the next host, Chinese President Xi Jinping, offers succulent Peking duck and a strictly non-vegetarian Chinese menu to his mehmaan in 2027? A jelly fish starter in place of khandvi, and sliced roast pork instead of carrot bean poriyal and millet pulao? Well, I am sure our delegation will come armed with packets of methi theplas…

The tree-planting photo ops? Good touch. Putinji shovelling dirt. Modiji rearranging the world’s most feared leaders into a neat file, grabbing a hand here, nudging a shoulder there. Boys will be boys.

Especially when there are so many cameras around. Ten saplings of the great banyan tree, symbolising deep roots, longevity and strength, were planted by the mighty leaders.

It irks that women were all but invisible throughout the summit while a bunch of men planned and plotted the future of the new world. Deftly excluded? Women and Ukraine — same-same but different. Both rendered inconsequential, non-existent while these men focused on real stuff that’s far more important — war, arms, ammunition, bombs, planes, war heads, nukes. Donald Trump was given the biggest thappad. So… at least some good came out of the Summit. Now, let’s wait for Yellow Hair’s backlash.

Then comes a far weightier issue than the Brics 2026 Summit and the Bharat Mandapam gathering of the greats. Let’s call it the Fat Shaming of India. Followed by the fat shaming of prominent female personalities. Both are interlinked. The world has recognised one incontrovertible fact: India will never go back to being Size Zero.

India was once visibly anorexic… and not fashionably so. It wasn’t out of choice. India was not bulimic. India was poor. There wasn’t enough food for its people. Today’s India is visibly prosperous and is happy to flaunt its Plus Size. Our people are not just well-fed; some are clearly overfed. This is a sharp response to food deprivation, which defined the earlier generation. Some political rivals insist India has become obese and needs to go on a diet. But that’s not happening.

We can’t get over the psychological thrill of excess. Our children are growing up with the worst food habits in India’s history and obesity is now a national crisis. If one looks at popular culture via Bollywood, a wealthy man on screen always showed off a generous paunch. His moon-faced wife flaunted tyres. The kids were tubby and bullied the scrawny kids of the “naukar”. A rake thin rich guy? No chance. A heroine minus curves? “Pad her up.” Imagine then, what has transpired during the past few years. I’m talking about the hate the gorgeous Katrina Kaif has been receiving this week after netizens noticed her extra kilos on the red carpet. Kaif (43) gave birth to her first child a few months ago and is looking gloriously happy! Across the border, Maheera Khan, Pakistan’s most stunning award-winning star, announced her second pregnancy at 41. How blessed are both of

them! But haters can only see the extra kilos. The cruel barbs coming Katrina’s way indicate India’s obsession with women’s “perfect” bodies with no thought spared for the miraculous creation of a new life inside the same body audiences once fantasised over.

Katrina and Mahira have never looked as beautiful. A fulfilled life as a mother adds up to much more than mere weight management. Take that, haters.