Now you see them, now you don't!

Has anyone, except me, had the time or inclination to notice how some families unleash their entire brood upon us, all at the same time? How does that happen? Do these folks wake up one fine day to notice all their kids are old enough to step out in the big, bad world on their own? Like my dad who thought, for a good 5-yrs or so, that I was 24? Or do they think their kids are so good that no matter where we turn our heads, we ought to see at least one of them? Or is it sibling rivalry that makes the kids attempt same things at the same time?

Whatever it is, I cannot start with anyone but Malaika Arora-Khan. So there was Malaika, giving these steamy shots with her then boyfriend Arbaaz for a coffee ad. And the next thing we know, she is shaking more than a leg with SRK atop the toy train in Dil Se. While we are trying to figure her out, her kid sister Amrita crawls out of her crib. She is nothing like Malaika, has a baby face and her only claim to fame is that she is Kareena’s best friend. Obviously, she hangs around till she found an NRI and made herself scarce.

My contemporaries will remember how there was one ‘cute Tanya’ (now known as T-Series’ Kishan Kumar’s wife) who debuted way back in 1993. She couldn’t do much, after all, she was another gum-chewing, talking-in-half-sentences-teenager. Then she cut an album (with T-Series of course!) and eventually married Kishan Kumar. Last I heard she was launching ‘Teso’, “country’s ultimate party destination” in Goa.

Around the time Tanya debuted, her sister Natasha was on TV with Dekh Bhai Dekh, a daily sitcom. She was noticed in other shows like Saat Phere and Milan, but was reported to be breaking into Bollywood in 2010 with Mission 11^th July. I have no idea what happened to the movie or to her for that matter.

AND, if these two long-haired girls weren’t enough, their parents, small-time music composer Ajit and numerologist Gitanjali, set another daughter, Sanyukta free, telling her “jaa, jee le apni zindagi”. So Sanyukta also debuted in 1993 with Salaami opposite Ayub Khan. But where is she now? I am not complaining, just curious.

Then there were the Reddy sisters? Meghana was a VJ, did ads. And then came along Sushma who was seen in more than a 100 TV ads. She made her Bollywood debut with Chocolate. Around the same time, there was a Pankaj Udhas video with the quintessential long-haired, bangled desi rani beti with a white man, the two of them enacting Saki’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’. Before long, this one, Sameera, had shed her good girl garb and was making her Bollywood debut. While she may not have made her mark in Bollywood, she has done pretty well for herself down south.

Finally, I come to the Khan sisters. Looks wise, Nigaar and Gauhar are poles apart but they’re both spunky girls and have both done pretty decent work in the past few years.  I don’t or won’t comment on them much because they’ve both carved their own niches in the tinseltown. Gauhar has won TV shows, done cameos and even item numbers in movies. Nigaar, with the looks – and figure – of a vamp, has done a lot of TV and is a household name already.