The New Poster Girl

Once upon a time, there used to be a dummy's guide to so-and-so. Nowadays, it's called the millennials' guide.

Priyanka Chopra has been riding tidal waves ever since her 'breakout' role in Quantico. Breakout in the Hollywoodian sense. It's de rigueur for successful Bollywood stars to be showcased in Hollywood - only then is the taste of success seriously sweet. It's a kind of an endorsement: that the West has been won (so to say) so you're now in a different league. Of course, I don't believe that. I'll take Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar or Shakti any day over his silly appearance on The Great Gatsby; just because he's side-showing Leo doesn't mean he's a greater actor. But I deviate. Let's get back to Priyanka. She was an unlikely contender for a Bollywood crown. Back in the day, when she won the Miss India title - and then Miss World - a lot of people said she looked too "unconventional" to make it big in showbiz (and the reason why she was snapping up beauty pageant titles on the trot was because she was a 'thinking woman'). But, boy, did she prove her detractors wrong. She thoroughly reinvented herself, and went that extra mile by infusing a new dimension to the 'orthodox' notion of what Bollywood actresses should be like. Her roles in movies like Aitraaz and Fashion showed her up to be a modern woman, without the stranglehold of societal norms. And she clicked - also because audiences' perceptions were changing, and she struck a chord somewhere. It's been no looking back for Priyanka, and, today, she's on a roll. Not just because of Quantico (that's no doubt yet another feather in her feathery cap). Read the PC success story in our Bollywood feature.
Once upon a time, there used to be a dummy's guide to so-and-so. Nowadays, it's called the millennials' guide. Millennials are meant to be tutored for heft because it's felt - almost universally - they're a little bit (okay, I underplay) slow on the uptake. Being born into an era blessed with the likes of laptops and Google and smartphones, you don't need to be very bright, right? There are mechanisms and easy shortcuts to take care of most of your thinking, right? Well, we speak with a few millennials to get their version of the theory to set the record straight. It's quite fun finding out what they feel about this sort of a patronising attitude.
Breakfast gets a new twist this (new) year. Maybe it's time to be (or, at least, resolve to be) healthy and wise, so we give you some yummy breaking the fast recipes that promise to take care of brawn and brain. In Travel, traipse down Fort Kochi and find yourself in a world that can only be described as other-worldly.
All this and much more.
Enjoy reading wknd. and have a great weekend!