Column

They say beauty is only skin deep, but it’s a valuable asset if you’re poor or haven’t any sense! The fact is some people just don’t get it. Like this superficial friend of my wife who is depressed these days. Because she just can’t seem to understand why a beautiful woman like her can’t find a desi Brad Pitt! To make matters worse, she just broke up with her online boyfriend after she found his soft-focus profile picture more handsome than his real self! But we’re all superficial at some point in our lives. Like I am these days. Especially after I caught the telegenic Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, winking at me during the US vice presidential debate last Thursday! By the time I realised that she winks and says “exceptional” every two seconds, I was smitten! Now I know more about this potential vice president of America, while having almost no idea who’s the vice president of our own country! Come on, how many of you’ve heard of Mohammed Hamid Ansari? But I not only know Sarah Palin likes white chocolate mocha, Diet Pepsi and moose stew, but her glasses are Kazuo Kawasaki 704 series in #34 grey and she jogs daily in Nike Air Structure Triax!

It’s not just me. Even visiting Pakistani President Zardari couldn’t stop salivating until this former beauty queen and TV sportscaster reminded him that she is a life member of the National Rifle Association! In fact, she could give shooting lessons to America’s current vice president, Dick Cheney, who shot a friend in the butt during a hunting expedition. It doesn’t matter that Sarah Palin thinks the vice president’s job is quite useless and once asked, “What is it that the VP does everyday?” Neither is it of any significance that geography is not her strong point, considering she said in a recent TV interview that “we can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska!” Similarly, who cares if she’s named her five children - Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper and Willow - after hunting equipments, cigarettes or hockey-related stuff? And if they say her husband Todd was arrested in 1986 for drunk driving, I am sure he told the cops that he was intoxicated by her beauty!

The good news is that in these days of superficiality, the world’s fattest man is getting married - and all he had to do was drop 230 kg from his world record 590 kg!