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A hundred cameras
are trained on her fetching derriere as it wriggles mesmerisingly. I am
Manpreet, Bipasha
and Sheetal have, between them, more assets than Credit Suisse. Even
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Alpha Omega & India India is the flavour of the year at the world's best-known watchmaker, Omega. A trio of gorgeous Indian models and designer Rohit Bal grab the spotlight at a celebrity-studded event hosted by the company in the Swiss Alps. Executive Editor Dilip Bobb was there to reflect in basked glory.
The main drag in Crans, all 500 yards of it, reeks of prosperity and snob value. The villas and apartments all have flower boxes in the windows, but the predominant smell is money. The only shops here are international designer labels and, of course, the glittering array of watches in the window displays. So here we are, watching Cindy. Literally. The supermodel, one of the world's most beautiful women, is the jewel in Omega's crown. She earns a vulgar amount of Swiss francs to endorse the world-famous brand, and the accompanying clutch of celebrities are here because Omega is hosting a celebrity golf tournament in its 150th year, where the rich and famous rub padded shoulders with some 200 other invitees lower down the social food chain. The best part about these celebrity affairs is that there are people from all over the global village, so everyone assumes you must be someone important. Another celebrity tip-off: they don't all wear Versace and Lacroix. Ivana does, but Cindy normally doesn't. Neither does her new husband, Rande Gerber, the nightclub owner from New York who has stepped into the marital shoes vacated by Richard Gere. This is, after all, a golf tournament and the dress code issued by Omega did specify casual. Maybe Ivana Trump and her current companion, an Italian count with dubious lineage but sculptured shoulders and blow-dried hair, didn't read the small print. They wander around in designer nirvana, leaving wafts of expensive cologne and air-kisses in their wake. Nabila Khashoggi, after whom the famous yacht was named, is with them, though less obtrusive, much more approachable and attractive. But for now, all eyes are on Cindy. She has the honour of teeing off and a hundred cameras are trained on her fetching derriere as it wiggles mesmerisingly. I am barely 10 ft away, watching her get her position right. I've certainly got mine right, literally a bird's-eye view. After a few cardiac-arresting wiggles, she settles down, eyes the distant fairway, addresses the ball and takes a swing. The expectant ''Ah!'' from the crowd turns into a collective ''Oh!'' as the ball pops up into the rarefied air and lands some 10 ft away. Oh, well, celebrities can't always get everything right. She shrugs her well-toned shoulders, takes another swipe and immediately doubles her yardage. Husband Rande doesn't do much better, slicing his tee-shot into the trees lining the immaculate fairway. What the hell, they make an attractive couple and are clearly having a ball. Meanwhile, their playing partner, golf pro and defending European Masters champion Costantino Rocca, has banged his ball some 300 yards down the middle of the fairway, so all is not lost. But Cindy is definitely not a swinger, at least not on this course. The previous day, she was out doing what she does best--posing, pouting and preening in front of the camera for an Omega-related outdoor shoot. The setting was dramatic enough: 3,000 m up the mountain at a ski station called Les Violettes, the snow-covered Alps all around, and sheathed in a black cocktail dress which looked like its price tag would have fed a family of four for a year. A Swiss family, that is. The Swiss are among the most prosperous in Europe. Here, even the postman, taxi driver and garbage collector have cellular phones. Not much scope for one-upmanship. Apart from Cindy, Omega also boasts in its stable of endorsers, Martina Hingis, Michael Schumacher and golfer Ernie Els, not to mention guest appearances by Pierce Brosnan, who is definitely not their favourite ambassador. He once arrived at an Omega-sponsored event wearing a Piaget watch, a cardinal sin in any corporate book. His explanation: he was running late and grabbed the first watch he could lay his hands on. None of them are here this celebrity-studded weekend, so Cindy has the stage to herself. Supermodels who work for cash-rich and celebrity-hungry corporations like the Swatch Group (which includes Omega, Blancpain, Rado, Longines, Tissot, Calvin Klein and Swatch among other brands) are treated like royalty. She had come up the mountain like the rest of us plebeians by cable car, but there all resemblance ended. While the rest of us slipped and slithered down the grassy hill to where a glass platform had been erected for the shoot, Cindy was carefully driven down in a Range Rover as if she was a rare Ming vase. Apart from the photographer, her entourage included her personal hairdresser, male, but very camp, very New York. Her personal make-up woman, very butch, very New York, and a couple of heavies to keep the hoi polloi from trampling on her Prada sandals. Cindy, for all her movie-star looks and supermodel poise, was something of an anticlimax. A few hours earlier, a few of us had sat stunned into silence by beauty, grace and, in that setting, something exquisitely exotic, even erotic. Omega has suddenly gone India-crazy. Everybody in the organisation, from big boss Nicolas Hayek, a corporate legend in Europe, to the lowest gofer, are awed, enraptured, and captivated by India. Even more so when three Indian models appeared like a midsummer day's dream, wearing bright, skimpy saffron saris designed by Rohit Bal. Framed against the Alps and standing on the same glass platform used by Cindy, they were a sight to send any male running for the nearest Viagra outlet. Manpreet Brar, Bipasha Basu and Sheetal Mallar have, between them, more assets than Credit Suisse. Even Mont Blanc, visible in the distance, would have melted at the combination of pristine Swiss slopes and dusky, oriental beauty. Their hair braided in exotic loops, flowers strategically entwined, they looked like something out of fantasyland; every male's fantasy, that is. Omega executives, mostly Swiss, whose only visions of India were pictures of the Taj Mahal, were goggle-eyed. So was I. But, remembering I was Indian, I put my tongue back in my mouth without anyone noticing.
Forget the Taj and the Kama Sutra. There are more curvaceous monuments to admire. Indian beauty, internationalised by the Miss World and Miss Universe success stories, is now the in thing. The Indian contingent, which also included Omega executives and retailers from Asia and diamond dealers from Antwerp, was the cynosure of all eyes, not least because of the three models. Heads swivelled each time they walked into a restaurant or a disco or did crazy late-night antics in the staid streets of Crans-Montana. Cindy may have been the star, but they stole the show. In the lap of the towering Alps, India was definitely flavour of the month. ''It's a dynamic connection,'' enthuses Hayek. ''India has the culture of appreciation of beauty. It has colour, emotion, everything that we value in our products. We are looking to adapt the past into the future and Indian designs and traditions are major inputs into that strategy.'' Hayek, a legendary figure who yanked Omega out of near-bankruptcy in the early '80s by gambling his personal fortune on turning the company around, is the man behind the current India-craze. A flamboyant, pint-sized dynamo who favours casual attire, Hayek always wears at least seven watches on wrists and muscular forearm. ''I don't want to show partiality to any of the brands,'' he explains. What he is clearly partial to is India. Enter Rohit Bal. The designer has been working with Omega executives at their Bienne headquarters on their top-of-the-range jewellery collection which will make its international debut in India this November, another elegant salaam to the subcontinent. At the end of the celebrity golf tournament, Rohit and Manpreet, former Miss India, first runner-up in the Miss Universe contest and now Omega ambassadress, were asked to give away some of the prizes, an honour reserved for major celebrities. The prize-giving was preceded by a joint press conference featuring Hayek and Cindy. Hayek, spoken of in the same breath as Bill Gates and Jack Welch, answered questions on the global economy and the Russian crisis. When Cindy's turn came, the audience was asked if they had any questions. None did. I guess her views on the global economy are not that sought after. She did have one telling comment to make. When Hayek presented her with a specially crafted one-off watch in platinum, she pointed backstage and remarked: ''You know what they all say back there. The Bitch gets everything.'' The ''Bitch'' does know all about personal finance, however. I had met her that afternoon. She, and the major celebrities, were all staying at the Hotel du Golf, adjoining the Crans Sur Sierre golf course. The Indian contingent, as honoured invitees, was put up in the same hotel, so bumping into her or Ivana or Nabila in the lobby or lounge had become a routine affair. I was, however, meeting Cindy in my official capacity. When I asked what made her choose Omega over the other companies breaking down her door, her answer was simple: ''It's an international brand name. But I also loved the financial package they were offering.'' It must be hard being married to a celebrity. Husband Rande trailed behind her like a member of the entourage, and though she made every effort to hold his hand or put her Omega-shod arm on his shoulders, he looked a little out of place. As they say, you can take the man out of New York, but not New York out of the man. In contrast, Ivana was in her element, wearing the shortest of hemlines or tightest of trousers to display her legs, easily the most impressive part of her assets. There was even the prospect of Ivana in a sari. She asked Rohit Bal to drape her in one of his creations, but found it too complicated. Or maybe it clashed with what the count was wearing, since he never left her side. Some women, especially those with million-dollar divorce settlements, have that magnetic effect on men. Meanwhile, the Indian contingent was happy just to bask in reflected glory. We had arrived prepared to be the ones doing the neck-craning and people-pointing. Instead, thanks to three gorgeous and fun-loving girls, we were part of the group being eyed, and certainly envied, the most. The others may have been bigger and better-known celebrities. However, we had the most fun. But now it was time to bid a fondue farewell to Crans-Montana and Omega. They had been superb hosts and this clearly is a dynamic company with hugely talented people running it. Despite the large crowd of invitees, a host of celebrities, and journalists from all over the world, everything went like, well...clockwork. From Crans-Montana it was down to Bienne, a couple of hours drive from Geneva. Rohit, Manpreet and Omega's tireless and affable regional boss in Singapore, Ravi Thakran, went off to do business while I wandered through the hi-tech headquarters of the Swatch Group. No wizened old craftsmen here, just computers and CAD designs and the latest space-age technology. It's easy to see how the Swiss, despite the Japanese onslaught, still make the most sought-after watches in the world. The Omega family, as they like to be called, are still playing perfect hosts. Little wonder. The Swiss offer the best hospitality-industry training anywhere, with the possible exception of Cornell. I guess it must be something in the fondue or the chocolates. Whatever it is, I certainly wasn't complaining. They also say the Swiss are boring people. Not so. All they really need is a bit of Indian masala to wind them up. Then, like their most famous product, they really start ticking, as we discovered on our late-night revelries. The gracious hospitality extended to Geneva in plenty of time to catch our Swissair flight to New Delhi. I settled into my seat only to discover that my companion on the seven-hour flight was Manpreet. Life can be hard sometimes. © Living Media India Ltd
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Is Cindy Crawford a swinger? that's what I'm here to
find out. 'Here' is the kind of place the tourist brochures would describe as 'sylvan'.
Crans-Montana is a squeaky clean, elegantly upscale Alpine resort which could be a twin to
Aspen in Colorado. At a height of 1,500 m above sea level and surrounded by the Alps, its
main claim to fame is its location which makes it an ideal, and exclusive, ski resort in
winter and it also boasts a world-class golf course where the annual European Masters
tournament is held every September. 
The trio had been specially selected to feature in Omega's latest
international catalogue--a rare honour for India and the Indian look. The catalogue will
be distributed in over 70 countries worldwide. The day after the catalogue shoot, the
three models, wearing different but equally stunning outfits, had starred at the opening
exhibition of Omega's latest jewellery collection. Even the celebrities present, including
Hong Kong--and now Hollywood--martial arts star Chow Yun Fat, the glamorous Hong Kong
showbiz couple of top model Qi Qi and actor Simon Yan, Gene Cernan, American astronaut and
the last man to leave his footprints on the moon, and opera star Simon Estes, jostled to
have their photographs taken with the trio. In that exalted company and ambience, it felt
great to be Indian.