Girl, Uninterrupted

She has the looks to die for and guts to live life on her own terms. But supermodel Tinu Verghis is far from the glamour doll image. Rama Sreekant discovers the many dawns of this dusky beauty

Tall. Dusky. Free-spirited. That’s Tinu Verghis for you. Strutting down the ramps with her head held high, towering at 5’10, this supermodel is your quintessential south Indian from the backwaters of God’s own country. “I grew up as the youngest of four girls in an orthodox Syrian Christian family. I went to Bishop Cotton boarding school in Bengaluru,” says Tinu. And true to her Kerala roots, “Kappa and meen curry made my Sundays delightful. My sisters and I used to take my grandmother’s bath towel to go fishing near the paddy fields. We would beg ammachi to fry the small fish we would bring back,” Tinu reminisces, about her girlhood days in Kerala. While at boarding school, her friends joked that she would be a model. “Somewhere along the road, I liked the joke. I went to meet Prasad Bidapa. He gave me my first show for Rs. 250. He never really liked me for any shows after that for a long time. I don’t blame him because not everyone can be convinced all the time.” 

As a child, Tinu didn’t aspire to be anything. “I was told as a youngster that aspiration leads nowhere. Instead I learned to enjoy life on a day to day basis. You are lucky if you are alive tomorrow.”  Moreover, “My parents didn’t have a point of view on me. They tried to replicate themselves in my sisters. When that was extremely successful, they didn’t like what they saw. They gave up just when I was ready to be initialized into this world. So I grew up within my own terms and conditions.” And while she straddled both philosophy and pragmatism, Tinu marched ahead to script her success story and walked for brands such as Christian Dior, Christian Lacroix, Prada, Escada, and Gucci. 

The dawn of the dusk

 A true blue Mallu, Bengaluru is where Tinu made some of her best friends forever, but “I am not emotionally attached to any place. I had a great time in Bengaluru. Now I can hardly recognise the city. It’s as congested as Mumbai. Once upon a time it was known as the air-conditioned city, now it is a steamy place that is exploding at its seams. But I still meet my friends when I’m in the city for shows, we become hysterical like school girls.”  Having walked the ramp for top of the line designers, Tinu is an apotheosis of independence.  It’s no surprise then that she defies the stereotype. History is witness to the fact that models and supermodels have opted out of modelling to pursue Bollywood, but Tinu hums a different tune, “I can’t act to save my life.”  Candid to the core and a catalyst for change Tinu believes in not just changing the rules of the game but also changing the way the game is played in the first place. She’s convinced that the ancient Brahminical belief and order of fair and lovely doesn’t exist in the world of fashion. “Black has always been acceptable on the ramp. It’s the ad and movie world that has serious issues with dark skin. The public thinks Bollywood is the way of life. You can’t change their perception unless advertising and Bollywood changes its attitude,” says Tinu, adding “All those black-as-a-shadow coloured clients and directors running the ad/movie world, I wonder, do they ever look at themselves in the mirror?” Tinu practices what she preaches. She was one of the five dusky models featured on the cover of a leading fashion magazine in April 2010 to dispel the dark skin stigma. 

Fame, food and more

While some dream of success, others wake up and work hard at it. Tinu prefers to have the best of both worlds.  “I have learnt from the mistakes of other people. I have no role model. I like the unchartered territory.” And to Tinu, there is no real formula to success. “If you can fall asleep every night with peace and love in your heart, you are extremely successful.” Peace is something that rightly finds high ground in Tinu’s life. She rates being at peace with oneself and one’s surroundings as one of the most important factors for achieving personal and professional success. “You have just one life and I believe in living it to the fullest” she says in her quintessential style.

This Kerala-born-Mumbai-based model prefers being a world citizen than being typecast as a south Indian. “I am me and everything is a mish-mash of things I have learned along the way.” But she believes her south Indian traits follow her “like a shadow.” You can probably take Tinu out of south India but you can’t take south India out of Tinu. “Quentin, my boyfriend, takes me for Onam feasts. We both enjoy Kerala food tremendously.” For a supermodel who loves Mallu food, pressure is not a term you could use with her. “I dance to a different drummer’s beat. I hate the idea of being fleshy/meaty/chubby. I like to be thin.” Tall and lithe, she’s the piece de resistance of every designer in India and abroad, and has been featured in magazines such as Elle, L’Officiale, Femina, Vogue. “Everything can be learned. Nobody walks in as a complete package. It takes long to create your own identity. Internationally, as long as you walk well, it’s a cake walk. In India, you need to be graceful to carry Indian garments and be a smooth glider in other garments. Some Indian garments are heavy and crushing, so walking in those takes a lot of experience.”

 Tinu may have walked the ramp for the most sought after international designers but home is where the heart is. “Our craftsmen in villages are far more evolved than anywhere else in the world. India has a gold mine in terms of traditional embroideries like chikankari, kalamkari, zardozi, ari, kantha. If we as a nation look within us, we can create a platform of our own and not ape the West all the time,” observes Tinu. 

Heart matters

She’s your little miss sunshine. “I am on solar power. Show me some sun and am bright and shining.”  What about marriage and kids? A non-believer in the institution of marriage, Tinu loves babies. “Quentin and I are waiting to make a couple. It has been absolutely painful to see people getting married. It is a complete waste of time and money. I’d rather use that money to eat sashimi with a bottle of champagne for breakfast every day.  I don’t think marriage is a guarantee to keep two people together.”

Tinu, the supermodel, is also an off-the-ramp role model worth emulating for her social responsibility. Though she hasn’t aligned herself to any specific NGO Tinu reckons, “I am an NGO by myself.” She likes to see where her money is going and so, “I take it on me personally to put two little girls through school and hopefully through university. I would like to do it for more kids.” She also holds environment issues close to her heart. Tinu is of the opinion that India has to look within itself to reap the bounties of nature and stop looking elsewhere to optimise our growth.  “I think it’s time for the fashion industry to focus on sustainable fashion with the use of organic cotton, organic silk, bamboo, natural dyes, and protect the environment from the harsh toxic waste that is being released into air, water and soil. With the advent of GM crops, the situation of the farmer and the environment has deteriorated drastically. The fashion industry must take responsibility by sourcing organic textile from within India.”

Live life queen size

Her role in the world of fashion is one that spells glamour, glitz and glitter, but Tinu believes there’s more than meets the eye. “There is nothing glamorous about a job that pays you a pittance. Glamour comes with money. Models in India are treated like kids. We are a disillusioned lot. A top Indian model who has been in the industry for ten years gets paid $1000, internationally. Gisele Bundchen is paid approx $150,000 for a show. I cringe in shame at the disparity of treatment meted out here.”

Ambitious, audacious and spontaneous is the stuff Tinu’s made of. She is unrestrained and lives for the moment. Tinu doesn’t want an epitaph to be remembered, “I don’t want to waste any space on earth when am dead. I want my body to be salvaged for every last bit of reusable organ. Then sent to a medical college to be cut up and examined. Then cop whatever is left over, and be thrown into the deep sea, so the fish can eat me instead of plastic.”

More power to you girl! 

These are a few of my favourite things

Designer: Rahul Mishra, James Fereira

Brand: Brand less wonder

Perfume: CK Eternity

City: Goa

Shopping destination in the world: Bangkok

South Indian delicacy: Kappa and meen curry

Tinu talks

Style is: being comfortable

Bollywood or ramp? Ramp

The best compliment you’ve ever received: Someone once told me I looked like Janet Jackson. I cracked up laughing. I wish every day a random person would crack me up like that. I prefer humour to compliments.

Money is: means to an end

The book that changed my life: God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Luxury is: swimming in my pool and having the option of floating on a giant ice block when the weather is hot

Secret of your radian skin? Sex. If everyone made love consensually, there would be no time for war

One thing we didn’t know about Tinu: I hate candles. Candle light dinners, candle light sex, candle light surprises, it’s the cliché that kills me.