Celina Jaitley, Miss India 2001

This postcard arrived today from Portugal; it’s not much thicker than, say, the page from an old encyclopedia, and probably about as rigid, but it fared very well.

My first thought was that this young lady was a Portuguese model.  The only description on the card reads “Celina” but, upon closer inspection, I saw that the card was published by Jain Picture Publishers, Bombay.  So I thought: Is this girl Portuguese?  Is she from India?  Do I really care?

Well, I guess I did; I was able to find out that this is Celina Jaitley, famous Bollywood actress and former Miss India.  After competing in the Miss Universe pageant (and coming in as fourth runner-up), Celina went to work in the movies and has appeared in at least 16 Bollywood films so far.

Thanks to Slumdog Millionaire, a lot of people are now familiar with a typical Bollywood dance number but, in case you’re not, here’s a treat for you: the opening credits of Celina’s 2008 film Golmaal Returns.  This is actually fairly modern and has far higher production values than most dance numbers I’ve seen — and it even has some lyrics in English.  I wonder if the Hindi lyrics are as insipid as the English ones.