Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones recently spent $ 2 million on a lavish HAHK-style wedding, bursting with relatives, friends, paparazzi AND their own four-month-old son Dylan. No eyebrows raised.

Could it happen in good old fashioned India? Could Sonia Gandhi go back to Italy??? We can develop a taste for patties of saturated fat garnished with wilted lettuce leaves and a side order of fries. But when it comes to basics, the choice is clear - no McValues please!

Maybe decades of governmenty famiy planning propoganda has actually worked. Maybe the hajaar clinics offering abortions for the price of a movie ticket do the trick. There's also the 'nosiness' factor. In a middle class colony a kid flunking an exam makes big news on the ANN (Aunty Neighbourhood Network). Pregnancy before the saat pheras? I shudder to think!!!

The results of a survey by Durex condoms revealed that Indian youth, along with Taiwanese and Singaporeans are prudes who are likely to lose their virginity only at age 20. Most likely with a steady they plan to get married to. Look at the practical problem. Smooching at Marine Drive is difficult enough... Try to 'just do it' in a Maruti 800!

The scarcity of pregnant teenagers secretly having their babies does not deter our TV scriptwriters. The show may have an innocent 'family oriented' title like Ghar ek Teerath Sthaan but that should not fool you. We too can be 'bold and beautiful' and add to the national population without any hang-ups. Bhai, if TV characters were as boring as real people how would shows stretch on for 542 episodes??

The soap opera was invented in America... so were the principles of script elasticity. But in that country it is common to have illegit kids. In the small town of Hunstville, Alabama, where I studied for a year, we had a SEPARATE high school for pregnant teenage mothers. No kidding.

Count the number of illegit kids on Indian TV and you'd think that nay day now Mrs Malhotra next door will declare her murky past and produce living proof. Or the guy you marry will tell you on your wedding night he is already a bachche ka baap. Or a stranger will land up at your doorstep voila, a brand new brother or sister.

Sounds so very realistic, doesn't it? Just like the 'ek hi bhool' concept pioneered by Hindi cinema, where two flowers meeting in close up usually produced lifelong consequences. Hindi film heroes have never heard of condoms... and the heroines definitely don't travel by local train. They're the only ones who've missed the ubiquitous ads for Pearl Centre!

I rest my case with this unbelievably corny billboard for Grasim suitings spotted outside Pune station: "Pregnancy test positive? Wedding suit in 24 hours."

Will the b***ard who came up with this bullshit come forward and break down, "Haan! yeh meri line hai. Maine ise janam diya."

Rashmi Bansal is editor of the popular youth magazine, JAM. She can be e-mailed at jam@vsnl.com