No Filter: IPL mystery girl Malti sets eyes on southern films

As Chennaiites, we take offense when someone questions the local fashion industry but it’s hard to eternally ignore what is happening. The industry is drowning in a sea of imposters and their scams. There is one such trio who have formed an alliance of sorts — one is a salon manager on OMR, another who we shall refer to as M and finally K, who has a full-time job at Indian Logistics but violates his contract there to run a side business. They had been called out for their malpractices earlier; they had even been trashed for making unwanted advances and taking liberty with aspiring models. However, when misery finds company, it seldom fails to stay silent. 

Their gamut of scams includes playing double agent — while they charge clients heftily to arrange fashion shows, they also fleece aspiring models, dangling the opportunity of walking the ramp in front of them. Thereby, they get away with huge profits. My only thought is why aren’t upcoming models doing their homework to see if organisers are legitimate or not? 

Upon verification it was further revealed that these mischief-makers steal videos from shows originally choreographed by Sunil Menon, Karun Raman or Priya Manikandan, and edit it to look like it was their event! These fraudulent clips are then sent to the models, tricking them into believing the work they’re doing is authentic. 

The salon manager, I’m told, brainwashes clients by promising them a career in modelling; “I will make you a star,” is what he reportedly tells them. He proceeds to take large sums of money towards creating a portfolio for them and in the meantime, I hear, has tried to shoot compromising clips of the person changing clothes. K, on the other hand, is rumoured to have told many upcoming male models, “Drop your pants if you want to be someone in this industry.”

I have seen coverage of their shady events by reputed media companies in TV channels, newspapers and magazines. This is what makes them seem legitimate to naïve models — I hope we can put an end to this. All you youngsters out there, who want to get into modelling, take the time to reach out to renowned industry professionals; we will make the time to help you. Maybe it’s about time we formed an alliance in Chennai to weed out such scamsters and protect models.