Well, I was hoping to find a fun New Year pinup for y'all - you know, a little Baby New Year all grown up, as it were.  However, I quickly discovered that Googling "hot man diaper" uncovers all sorts of things, but few have them have much to do with New Year's Day.  Goodness, the things people do get up to...

I don't know quite how it's possible, but it would seem that it's more than a year since we last checked in with one of the Café's original virtual crushes, the lovely and presumably somehow (although it's really rather beside the point) talented Mr. Upen Patel.

In honor of this solemn day, a little reminder all the way from Bollywood that one's heart can indeed belong to daddy...

Sad news out of Bollywood, kids...

How is it possible that autumn is nearly on us?  Where have the long, lazy summer nights all gone?

Many happy returns today to longtime Café bollycrush, the remarkable Mr. Upen Patel.

Dear Mr. John Abraham has gone distinctly butch for his latest epic, a rather grim-looking picture called Shootout at Wadala. He sports a rather more traditional Bollywood hero than usual - short hair and trim moustache, and is even more than usually formidably fit.  I thought about running the controversial big number from the picture, "Laila" (one of the things I like about Bollywood is that even the wildest action pictures still contain a Big Number or two), but he remains resolutely shirt-wearing throughout, a sad fact that can't overcome even the most extravagant production values.

His costar in the picture is Miss Sunny Leone, a new sensation in Mumbai, but a fixture in Hollywood - or at least the San Fernando Valley - for the past decade.  Given the Indian film industry's notable conservatism (despite its fevered romances, morality still rules with a firmness not seen in American pictures since the Hayes Code), it's fascinating that it has so readily embraced a woman whose previous titles include Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, The House of Naked Captives, and the particularly piquantly titled Shut Up and Fuck Me.

Well, if nothing else, John can give her a run for the money in the busty stakes...

In my endless quest to broaden your horizons,* you Philistines you, and remind you that there's a great wide world out there beyond Hollywood hegemony, I happened this morning across a name and face new to me.  Instantly, I knew he was someone you, too, would want to know more about; he is one Vidyut Jamwal, a quickly rising star of the Subcontinental cinema.  Isn't he pretty?


While he's only made a handful of films, in Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu, over the past two years, he certainly doesn't lack presence.


His first big splash, a 2011 epic called Force (the mind reels) paired him with Café perennial, the dear Mr. John Abraham, and resulted in this arresting image.  In many ways, I'm with Janet Weiss in not liking a man with too many muscles, but in this case, I suppose I could make an exception.  And Janet never said a word about two men...

* Which, yes, pretty much does consist only of reading the features section of our woeful English daily and then doing some Google image searching - but really, if finding alluring snaps like this is the result, ought you complain, really?

I've just realized that it's been several months since we checked in with longtime Café Bollyfave, dear Mr John Abraham.  Apparently, he's back to showering for photographs, which is certainly not something about which I'm going to complain...

It seems that dear Mr. John Abraham recently took time out of his busy schedule to preside as a visiting secret Santa at a Bollywood charity party.  Hurry down the chimney, indeed...

...he's all tied up.

It's been a shockingly long time since we've thought about longtime Café Bollycrush John Abraham, so when I ran across this intriguing snap, I just had to share it.

Apparently it's from a 2011 black comedy called Saat Khoon Maaf (Seven Murders Forgiven), in which our boy plays one of seven husbands bumped off by an unbalanced, serial-killing HindoGabor played by the lovely and talented Priyanka Chopra.

The picture only got middling reviews, but that image - let's just say it's food for thought...

As we continue to explore the richness and diversity of the Subcontinental cinema, it's important to discover new talent, don't you think?  This gentleman, for example, has been a fixture of India's non-Hindi film industries for the past decade, making some 70 films in Malayalam, Tamil, and Telegu.

He rejoices in the euphonious name of Prithviraj Sukumaran, and he is only now making his actual Bollywood debut, in a new picture called Aiyyaa, which is apparently a sort of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? for the new century.  Popular ingenue Rani Mukherjee has the Katharine Houghton part, with Prithviraj as the slightly-too-dusky love interest.  The still above is from one of the picture's steamy musical numbers, "Aga Bai," which you can check out here if so inclined - there's an intriguing sequence featuring the leading man in white organza and gold earrings, if that's any incentive.

He's only just recently bulked up to become the remarkable creature seen here; it's a striking effect, but I can't help regretting, ever so slightly the somewhat goofy charm (and especially the classic 'stache) that he's sacrified on the way:



Before

I fear that what he's gained in Imposing, he may have lost in Endearing.  We'll have to hope that in future outings a balance is struck.  In any case, it does seem he'd bear watching...

There seems to be a bit of a changing of the guard in Bollywood - some longtime Café fave-raves haven't been in headlines much (wherefore art thou, Mr. Abraham?), or have taken time off (although at least dear Mr. Patel is back in the studios), or are simply otherwise engaged.

All the more reason, then, that these two spruce young things caught my eye this week in our daily paper's entertainment section.  While distinctly on the junior side of things, and perhaps a touch less burly than is our wont, I think it's clear that both Mr. Varun Bhawan,seen here with the guitar and regrettable tattoo, and Mr. Siddharth Malhotra (and it's a measure of what a restrained, tasteful blogger I am that I didn't write "MalHOTra," don't you think?), looking pensively off camera, show great promise.

They are costarring in a shortly forthcoming epic titled Student of the Year, and I can only think it a wasted opportunity that it wasn't directed by Mr. William Higgins, who I am sure would have added a rather different to spin to what is likely not all that thrilling a picture.

This resplendently semi-clothed gentleman is, as many of you may already have recognized, Mr. Shahrukh Khan, a top Bollywood star for several decades but a relative latecomer to the exhibitionist and muscular tendencies that have made such favorites around here of Messrs. Abraham and Patel.  Still, he's no slouch, although I'm not sure the combo of leather pants and a kind of windowpane-eyelet puffy shirt is really a total success.  Frankly, clothed, I find him rather a bore.

He appears here today, in fact, only because (a) I was able to find a snap this fetching and because (b) today is the 635th birthday of someone I've never heard of, who ruled over (and this is what I found surprising) a realm I'd never heard of.  Having come into this world just before Labor Day 1377, he was Shah Rukh of Persia and Transoxonia, which was apparently a kind of joint empire along the lines of the late lamented Austria-Hungary.

Have you ever heard of Transoxonia?  It seems that it corresponded approximately to Uzbekistan and some other -stans.  I can't get over thinking it sounds like a spoof name out of a minor mid-century novel, along the lines of The Mouse That Roared's Grand Fenwick.  It's certainly, however, more euphonious than some of the region's other names over the years, like Prdry, which is practically Welsh in its impracticability.

So now you've learned something and had a chance to see a little BollyBeef.  You're welcome.

Just because he hasn't turned up around these parts in a while, Mr. Upen Patel. Yup - still stunning. His constant stream of importuning e-mails has trailed off, but only, I think, because Mr. Muscato threatened violence; if only the poor boy would accept that it's simply not meant to be...