The Peacocks of Pirelli

It’s now an uncertain world, with the white-armed Elena from the Odyssey who is black, British billionaires calling for higher taxes, and Bolognese police officers paying for their own bodycams to avoid taking risks, but the Pirelli calendar remains the Pirelli calendar. Once a gadget for rough-and-ready lorry drivers, then a feminist symbol, and in any case an aspirational object, over the years it has featured Black female models, male models, and then photos of women – naked, clothed, plus-size, slim, unknown and famous – from Luisa Ranieri to Sophia Loren to Tilda Swinton.

It is, however, the last survivor of the print era. Do you remember, for example, "Max" – the swan song of the magazine age – with Sabrina Ferilli or Alessandro Gassman, all oiled up on the rocks (I seem to recall that in the "Max" calendar, they were always on the rocks, and oiled up)? This one, on the other hand, is shot in ever-changing locations. There are dedicated staff who, every year, decide where to stage it, organising huge teams of photographers, models, electricians, make-up artists, and then, above all, us – the horde of greedy journalists who are whisked away from every corner of the globe to the shooting locations. It’s also a moving moment for journalists, who once had chauffeurs and status and could afford second homes; and for a few days each year, we rediscover that pleasure, deluding ourselves that we haven’t become, in terms of social standing and relevance, the equivalent of second-rate supplement influencers or itinerant school porters on the Naples–Milan route, but here, instead, we relive past glories, whisked away to exotic destinations, interviewing photographers and models, finding meals laid out for us, being treated with kindness – yet always fearing that ‘this is the last time’.

So here we are in India for this 2027 edition of “The Cal”. It’s not only our first time in India, but I believe it’s also the first time we’ve had two photographers along. The thing is, the designated editor, Raghu Rai – a sort of Indian Ferdinando Scianna – passed away just before the shoot, so his daughter, Avani Rai, who is also a photographer, took over, alongside the Norwegian Sølve Sundsbø, who had worked on last year’s edition.

So Rai’s daughter is taking on one part, whilst Sundsbø is handling the other – and compared to last year, she’s been hitting the gym hard; in fact, she’s travelling with her own assistant or personal trainer, who’s incredibly fit and heavily tattooed. We set off for Delhi and, after arriving at the colossal Indian airport, here we are in Jaipur, in May. The inexperienced reporter, who had never been to India before setting off, exclaims: “Wow, Jaipur, for free”, thinking, “when will I ever get another chance like this?”, but is immediately rebuked by the journalistic veterans who have covered many such assignments, or have simply been to India before, and reply bluntly: “Get ready – May is the hottest month of the year in India”. Indeed, upon arrival, the thermometer fluctuates between 40 and 42, whilst we can’t even step out of our – albeit luxurious – hotel rooms. Only the photographer drags himself to the gym with the tattooed personal trainer. Another risk looming over the temporarily spoilt reporter is the onslaught of monkeys: in the hotel rooms we could never afford – along with all the amenities we’ll be taking home with us once we return to the dreary reality – as a memento of this trip, there’s actually a stick provided for any primates that might invade the little garden (bear this in mind: a stick for monkeys).

Shut away in this lavish hotel, we follow the shots taken by the male and female photographers and shadow this year’s star model, who is currently lying in a water bath in a swimming pool, striking a somewhat pre-Raphaelite pose amongst the water lilies, held aloft by a fully-clad assistant wearing a mask and snorkel who supports her from below, then there’s someone fiddling with that disc used to direct the light just right, and then assistants, make-up artists, cameramen, photographers taking photos of other photographers – all united in their professional dislike of us journalists, who are, quite rightly, hanging around them, always getting in the way, as we file in in small groups: a local Indian delegation, a few Germans, and the large group of us Italians, who are easily recognised because we speak broken English and keep asking what’s for dinner.

Then the press conference. She emerged from the bath, was dried off and tidied up. She’s quite a character. Padma Lakshmi, fifty-five years old, absolutely stunning, born in India but who emigrated to America, is a television star; she’s hosted about twenty series of MasterChef, or something similar, has written eight books – a mix of cookery and memoirs – and has a daughter with Mr Dell, the brother of the computer guy, as well as having been married to Salman Rushdie, the one with the fatwa. Everyone asks her how she manages to look so beautiful, with such a hectic life, even though it’s obvious she’s had some work done using cutting-edge technology, but she knows you always have to deny it: “Oh, no, nothing. I just drink loads and loads of water.” And she doesn’t go out during the hottest part of the day, I imagine. But that’s not all. “I never, under any circumstances, expose myself to a ray of sunshine. In New York, if I have to walk a block, I’ll change direction as many as six times, jumping from one side of the road to the other in pursuit of the shade.” In addition to seeking shade and having already appeared in the Pirelli calendar in 2025, she also speaks perfect Italian – “I was discovered by the designer Alberta Ferretti” – and in Rome she starred in the unforgettable “Linda e il brigadiere”. And then in “Il figlio di Sandokan”. Any Italian memories? “Roma è dove sono diventata donna,” she declares, and no one dares ask her what she means by that, for fear of invading her privacy and becoming (in retrospect) like Marzullo with Fagnani, even though we’re in Jaipur and not in Minori (SA), the splendid setting where the well-known and regrettable incident between those two giants of the interview world took place.

Then, luckily, she steers the conversation towards food: “I make a fantastic carbonara, but without cheese”. Food always works. “In New York, where I live, the most sought-after restaurant is Indian; they always ring me to get a table – they think that because I’m Indian, I’ve got a back door.” “Yes, but come on, tell us the secret to your beauty,” insists someone else – an Indian Marzulla. “Oh well, let’s just say that, as Catherine Deneuve puts it, at a certain age you have to choose between your face and your bum; I chose the face,” she says, meaning that as you get older, if you become too thin, your face suffers; how charming – between Rome, the brigadier and Rushdie, you can tell she’s a sharp one – though it doesn’t seem as though her bum has suffered, excuse the sexism or ‘bumism’ – we’re not in Minori but in Jaipur.

“Padma means ‘lotus flower’ in Hindi,” she goes on to explain, patiently putting up with our silly questions, and immediately – in hindsight – it all clicks: she, she was the perfect Calypso for Nolan’s “Odyssey”, not the polished Charlize Theron, who looks like a lady from Capalbio with a pashmina draped over her shoulders to keep out the evening chill at La Macchia. Then there are other models, all Indian, including the aforementioned daughter of the late photographer, Avani Rai, who poses for a few shots, and in the days that follow takes us to another set in an old cinema in Delhi, the Delite, a historic auditorium all red velvet, where the finest Bollywood films have been screened, and it doesn’t seem under any threat at all; they don’t want to turn it into a supermarket, there’s no Indian Valerio Carocci ready to take it over. Then there’s Bhavitha Mandava, the first Indian model to be the face of Chanel, the actress Freida Pinto and Anoushka Shankar, the musician and daughter of sitarist Ravi Shankar – all mega-celebrities in India. Indeed, the delegation of Indian journalists is thrilled, whilst we are less so because we don’t recognise any of them.

So let’s return to the photographer. ‘Do you see any similarities between India and Italy?’ I ask, like Banality Jane, and he quite rightly shoots me down: “I don’t know” (perhaps he’s unaware of the brilliant acronym “Melodi” – Meloni+Modi – referring to the rapport developed between our two heads of government), but two journalists, one Indian and one British, come to my rescue, saying that yes, I’m absolutely right: “not just the landscape, but the sense of history, the importance of family and traditions”. Even the urban landscape in Jaipur could very well be the Salento or Calabria or Sicily (not Minori); magnificent princely palaces, and then outside, chaos and unfinished two-storey concrete blocks.

Then the photo shoots start up again, and in this sort of reporting you’re always waiting for something to happen – a press conference, an interview, anything at all – with excruciatingly long lulls, whilst you’re being stuffed with food alongside your colleagues, a bit like "Scoop" in the fictional Republic of Ismaelia from Evelyn Waugh’s novel. It’s a bit like group therapy, too. You chat things through, you open up. “Are you coming next year?” “Yes, hoping they’ll invite us again.” “Have you topped up your miles on the card?” (the Calendar veterans recognise one another; they have the air of people who’ve fought battles in a better era; they’ve got loads of airline points; their frequent flyer cards are their medals of honour).

Sometimes, paranoid thoughts: one even fears being in a ‘White Lotus’ for journalists, where they’ll wipe us all out – lured by the exotic journey, perhaps even in collusion with the INPS, the INPGI and the Order of Journalists – to balance the social security and owners’ coffers. In the evening, some alarming, muffled, choked-off sounds. It’s not a colleague who’s been dismissed by email by the Kiriakou of the moment. It must be the monkeys, no doubt. I take my walking stick and am about to head outside, but suddenly I’m catapulted into an episode of "Unomattina". Indeed, there are peacocks everywhere; that’s their call, which, as we’ve learnt, is for mating (“What do you mean, don’t you know that May is peacock mating season?”, says another expert on India and/or the Pirelli calendar). In short, it feels like I’m in Punta Marina, the hamlet near Ravenna that became famous last spring precisely because of the peacock attack. It was May and “Unomattina” was talking of nothing else – you’ll remember. It was May and there was still no talk of the gun-toting jeweller, or of Black people killed in police operations (of course, from America we always import only the most idiotic and harmful things – not air conditioning or customer care; there you go, we’ve had our own George Floyd and our own Wild West-style shoot-out, always many years behind the times).

But back to the story: on the third day, we went on a trip to a nature reserve to see some tigers, in open-top jeeps. We were all given instructions in case we spotted any tigers. Photographing the tigers is strictly forbidden, even from a distance, even in group selfies (as if the tigers were photobombing us; and we cannot quite determine whether all this photographic sensitivity towards the tigers is a ploy so that the rangers accompanying us can take photos of us for a fee, or whether the tigers are photosensitive or suffer from other health issues). Nevertheless, we roam for hours, becoming completely covered in dust, yet not a trace of a tiger. Instead, there are numerous peacocks with their ‘ahhh-ahhh’ call – which leads me to wonder: if they are always occupied going ‘ahh-ahh’, when on earth are these blessed peacocks ever going to mate? Has anyone ever observed a peacock mating? And then there are monkeys – loads of them – black, grey, with long and short tails, up in the trees, standing upright and hanging upside down. They’re certainly the ones that don’t come to our hotel. They’re not daft, after all. They’re not going to get themselves beaten up.

We then stop off in the city of Jaipur, where one of the attractions is the maharaja, the last of the Singh dynasty; although in India the surname Singh is a bit like ‘Rossi’, there are the ‘real’ Singhs and the ‘run-of-the-mill’ ones. The ‘real’ Singh is called Pacho; he’s under 30 and is part polo champion, part influencer. From his Instagram, it’s clear he’s constantly shuttling between New York and St. Moritz, and will only return here – like a student away from home – once he’s finished all his rounds of the Met Gala, parties and weddings around the world, alongside his sister. It seems, however, that he’s not exactly struggling: rumour has it he has a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even though the dynasty hasn’t reigned since ’49. And who knows whether here too, in this former kingdom that resembles our own South – with its countryside riddled with all manner of building violations and the random bonfires of the ‘controra’ – the Singhs (both the ‘real’ ones and the run-of-the-mill ones) will blame the British, just as we blame the Piedmontese, because before they arrived, life was absolutely marvellous and there were diamonds in Jaipur and beneath Vesuvius. In any case, the influencer-maharaja lives in the wing of the royal palace still owned by the family, which is open to the public, and in fact they take us on a tour of it. Once inside, apart from the cliché of feeling a bit like you’re in an episode of "The Pearl of Labuan" and a bit like you’re in "Indiana Jones" – with turbaned henchmen posing for selfies with tourists (unlike the tigers) – the royal palace doesn’t offer much, apart from photos of all the maharajas (but not the maharanis), and swords, cannons, honours and grand crosses dating back to the days of the British, and gilded palanquins – though these already have built-in electric lamps – and old Associated Press footage; in short, it seems they’ve either sold everything off, or Pacho is keeping the best bits at home, in the adjoining wing. The zealous guard in a red turban says that if the two flags are flying from the palace flagpole, the Maharaja is at home. There they are! And what a stroke of luck! I try messaging the Maharaja on Instagram, seeing as the flags are flying, and I see he’s online – perhaps Pacho will invite us for a coffee – but nothing, he doesn’t reply.

So off we go to the bazaar in Jaipur. A veteran colleague from India – or straight out of a Pirelli calendar – walks in; the vendors look at us, almost rubbing their hands together as if to say: ‘We’ll sort you out now’, but she has no idea what’s in store for her. My colleague looks confident; she starts asking about sari styles, then asks for tablecloths and placemats as well, and pyjamas, and tries everything on, several times. She asks for the total, then demands a substantial discount, haggling like not even Kofi Annan in his prime at the UN. Then, just as the deal is almost done, she says: ‘Ah, no, but this is in dollars; I’m paying in euros, and by card,’ thus saving her even more money. At this point, the shopkeepers in Jaipur would be ready to give us everything for free just to get us to leave; she points at me and says, ‘my husband’, and the shopkeepers look at me and think: poor bloke.