A few years ago, when Tashan was being made, Kareena Kapoor got alarmingly skinny. She went on a diet-exercise regimen that would make any bootcamp recruit quail in their…err…boots, and showed off not her sexy new shape, but her starvation-style ribcage in a lime-green bikini and other such skimpy outfits. But even as we disliked the skeletal image, never mind that Bebo insisted that it was achieved in a healthy way with her eating her favourite parathas, cheese and pasta the whole time, it was obvious that her co-star of the time, Saif Ali Khan, was most approving. After all, it was while the film was being made that the two got together; and have stayed joined at the hip ever since. And over the past year or so Kareena has been less strict about her diet – the no-diet diet, remember? – and has slowly been gaining curves. In Ra.One she managed to look sexy even as she wobbled a little in the tummy region as she sang Chammak challo with Shahrukh Khan. And in Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, with her dishy young co-star Imran Khan, she looks positively portly in comparison to her previous avatar.

Today we got a new photo of the to-be-Begum Pataudi where she is coming out of the airport with one hand over her tummy. And she seemed to be desperately trying to cover her middle with her stole. Of course, us being us, we are willing to take it as anything from an attack of the burps to just making sure that her drawstrings are properly tied, but as folks in the business of Bollywoodian speculation, we cannot help wondering whether the gesture is in any way significant. Is there a baby Kapoor-Khan-whatever on the way? Or is Kareena merely trying to suck in the bloom and look less voluptuous than she has been doing lately? We will keep wondering until someone tells us different.