Poppadom Paradise

Shilpa's victory was actually a triumph of the British Indian votebank

Rs 3 crore for participation in Celebrity Big Brother
Reports of £300,000 for interviews to newspapers, magazines and TV
Reported negotiations on for a further £200,000 for worldwide media interviews in February
Talks on for a role in The Kumars at No. 42
Rumours about a role in Hollywood film Shantaram starring Johnny Depp
Talks on with around 15 companies for ad campaigns
Reported negotiations with four UK record companies
Invitation to join the BJP from Gurdaspur MP Vinod Khanna
No spin-offs yet in Bollywood
Will reportedly get to meet the Queen, Tony Blair

That the population of British-Indians is about a million-and-a-half strong we already knew. That many of them are more Indian than British is also pretty clear, thanks to the Shilpa Shetty sweepstakes on Celebrity Big Brother. While she gambled and manoeuvred her way to victory and the promise of starry contracts, the triumph was only incidentally hers. It was more a show of the numerical power of the Indian votebank.

Day after day in the run-up to the final vote, e-mail and text messages were flying around the Indian sub-universe in Britain. Just about everyone who could in that large body of Indian busybodies turned campaigner for Shilpa. Indian associations, caste groups, British Hindu groups...everyone got into the act. "I will vote 20 times," a chap was saying at an Indian club. Others said they would outvote him.