NEW DIRECTIONS
And choreography was a challenge.

"Because it was something new. Because it changed the way I looked at a show. Because it changed the way I dealt with people; the models I used were people who I'd worked with -- which made some of them think they could take a few liberties like bunking rehearsals. Because it changed my career. I could not be a model in one show and a choreographer in the next. I could not be both. I thought that would be unfair and so I switched. And discovered who my friends were.

"Just two of them, can you imagine? After all these years in the business, there are just two people I can call friends! That's really sad, but that's just the way it is. Models these days don't seem committed to the idea of doing a good show or a good shoot. All they want to do is check out how they can make great gobs of money with the minimum effort. Hey, money is fine. I like it, too, but it can't be more than a means to an end. It's becoming the end in itself and that's frightening."

And then she got into grooming models for the ramp.

"Yeah. I threw this party last year with a whole show. All the models in that show were fresh faces -- newcomers. But it worked, it got talked about and I'd proved a point: There IS room for fresh talent. And there is fresh talent. We just have to find it. And that's a difficult process. There are two ways of going about that. The first is to train anyone and everyone who comes along for a nice fat fee. That's a commercial racket because you're not thinking about the glamour industry, you're not thinking about giving something back to the profession or even the thrill of watching your discovery make it big; you're in it for the nice little safe you have tucked away behind your M. F. Husain print. Face that.

"The second way is to train only those you feel have it in them. Which isn't foolproof because you may see something in someone; but if he or she doesn't have a 100 per cent drive, a 100 per cent fire-in-the-belly-type ambition, we're going to get nowhere. Which is where the challenge comes from right now."

And from choreography too, we hope.

"I think not. I don't know how long I'm going to be doing shows. There isn't too much of a challenge left now. The fashion show had evolved from being an entertainment event to being a serious assessment of what a designer or a set of designers was offering. Now they seem to want entertainment again -- which means we're regressing. I don't want to be part of that regression, so I guess I'll have to look for something else."

Let's take a guess. Designing clothes?

"I don't think so. Designing clothes isn't as easy as it seems. You can't just pick up a piece of paper and a set of coloured pencils and swish, swoosh, produce a design for some poor hapless 'darzi' to make up. It's a serious business and has to be learnt from the inside out. But I guess it will have to be something to do with the glamour industry. That's really all I know. I can't imagine myself going into something else and starting all over from scratch. That might be too much of a challenge. Even for me. But I'm not worried. Something will show up. The way choreography turned up; the way grooming turned up. These things keep happening to me. And I don't mind because they're kind of nice things, 'na'? And I won't work with my husband either. I don't believe in working together."

'Let there be spaces in your togetherness' as Khalil Gibran wrote. But we get ahead of ourselves. She's married to...

ANOTHER TURN
"I'm married. Can we leave it at that?"

It's not advisable to get in the way of Lubna Adam once she starts speaking.

"Isn't that enough? Aren't you tired? Am I talking too much? Just tell me if I am. I'll shut up. I can even do that, strange as it may seem."