Bookies not excited over Aishwaryas pregnancy

MANGALORE: The much publicised baby showers and then the birthday celebration of mother-to-be Aishwarya Rai, has hardly kindled the gambling instincts of punters in Mangalore.As punters in Mumbai and New Delhi bet heavily in crores on Aishwarya Rai’s baby, expected in the second week of November, punters in her birth place Mangalore are hardly breaking knuckles. The indifference of bettors in this port city with a long history of entrepreneurship and betting practices, is indeed baffling.Punters here have a reputation of making hay while the sun shines by placing bets and raking tidy sums during traditional cock-fights, Kambla (wetland buffalo races), card games among others. “What goes around comes around,” informs a member of the district Bunts sangha on condition of anonymity. Though Aishwarya Rai was born into a Tulu-speaking Bunts community in Mangalore, she is somehow indifferent when it comes to identifying herself as a Mangalorean, he feels.Except for a brief appearance during the World Bunts meet organised in Mangalore in 2002 (December 21-22), Aishwarya Rai remained aloof and distant, he informs. “The punters are just being intelligent,” believes Sridevi Education Trust chairman A Sadananda Shetty.Shetty, who is also a classmate of Krishnaraj Rai, father of Aishwarya Rai, says punters have showed no interest, for there is least speculation surrounding her pregnancy. The date of Aishwarya’s delivery or whether the baby due will be a boy or girl is just limited to idle banter, Shetty adds.