Bollywood's global grand marshals

Saif Ali Khan played grand 
marshal at the NY parade, 2012 and Deepika at the NY 
parade in 2008

As India celebrates its 67th year of independence, New York is all set to celebrate its 33rd Annual India Day Parade. Said to be the 'largest Independence celebration outside of India', with an average attendance of 1,50,000 people, this event is marked by pageants and floats, cultural events and speeches and oh... Bollywood celebrities! So famous is this celebration, that it has sparked off similar such India Day parades in other US cities as well.

Back in India though, we hear of these celebrations only when they announce which celebrity will play 'grand marshal' at the parade that year. Sometimes it makes for great photo-ops, like Deepika Padukone in 2008, sometimes it makes for great Twitter jokes, like Mallika Sherawat in 2010.

Is there a method to the madness while selecting which celeb will be grand marshal? Well, there doesn't seem to be since everybody from Amitabh Bachchan, Raj Kapoor, SRK, AR Rahman, Dev Anand,Rajendra Kumar, Anil Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, to Saif Ali Khan, Hema Malini, Madhuri Dixit, Ameesha Patel and Preity Zinta has been a part of these celebrations in the past. No seriously, when we say everybody, we mean everybody - even Sonu Sood, Aarti Chaabria, Minissha Lamba, Aftab Shivdasani and Upen Patel!

While the Preity Zintas get to attend the big fat NY parades and the Rani Mukerjis get to ring the Nasdaq bell and even light up the Empire State Building as part of the celebrations, the Chaabrias and Sherawats are usually headed to the off-side festivities in New Jersey and the likes. The latter might be no New York parade but it still has a 15,000-strong audience!