I distinctly remember the evening I returned from watching a matinee show of “Aap ki Kasam”. We lived in sleepy Trivandrum at that time and Mumbai seemed aeons away. I experienced deep melancholy as I came down from the “high” of the movie. There seemed such a great divide between the actual lives of Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz and poor little inconsequential me. I remember looking down at my cotton dress and Hawai slippers wondering how life could be so unfair. Little did I know that the demystification and democratisation process would happen in my life- time. Or that Bollywood's ubiquitous quality would make it a choice noun/adjective in many languages, spicing up our lives and adding colour to it in so many ways.
So its no wonder Indian weddings are the stuff of Hindi movies. Readily available and mass produced quasi- designer clothes make us all look like heroines and the parties mimic movie sets replete with the glitz and glamour of beautiful people in their authentic Indian haute couture. Long gone are the benign wedding scenes where we wore silk sarees, repeating over and over the maroons and mustards for the wedding ceremony and the more daring blues and greens for the evening reception. Now our fabrics range from Tussar silks to rich velvets embroidered with expensive crystals and semi -precious gems. The outfits are imaginative and range from dresses and Ghagra Cholis to Sarees with a twist. No one wears sterile blouses airhostess-style with the back fully covered and a respectable high V-neck in the front. All the vogue are halters with the back and arms naked, off shoulder creations with one sleeve and blouses tenuously held together with strings knotted at the back. Accessories include armlets, chokers and hair ornaments that defy the imagination. Also, older women dress much younger making for great homogeneity in clothes between the young and the old. Having thus adorned themselves these beautiful women are ready to take on the dance floor to gyrate to the latest Bollywood hits for an eye popping spectacle. There are no dance parties today without the more recent “Bathameezi Dil” or “Chu nanana chu nanana” or vintage “Om Shanti Om”. Then there are the bhangra numbers and remixes set to a fast beat. Everyone knows the lyrics of the songs. As they lip sync and imitate Prabhudeva or Farrah Khan dance- moves, they look pretty authentic. Who knew life could imitate art in such fashion and Bollywood could fuel the imagination in this way.
Augmenting the celebrity experience are mobile devices which come with high-end cameras and immediate upload capability. So every wedding party has a post celebration twitter hashtag to crowd source all the pictures taken by the cameras around the room. Also, there is no telling where these photos will surface. Published on blogs and social media they could go viral just because they tickle an idiosyncratic fancy of an ADD challenged public. Long after the fad has faded the pictures remain. Bottom-line, the investment in all the finery is well worthwhile because memories no longer languish in a fraying photo album at the bride’s parents’ home. They are now dynamically available to be immortalised in technicolour and shared infinitesimal times to all and sundry.
I am sure with a twitter following of real people and zombies, appropriate hashtags to commemorate events and topics, picture uploads, we can all mimic the lives of the people we would have idolised in yesteryears. Who said we are not all celebrities? Tweet me at #glamorousdezigirl to find out more!
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