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ShareIt is a chilly late November night, out there in the Gatsbyesque Farmland in Delhi's expanding 'beyond' that has metamorphosed into wedding heaven for the season. Women of all ages and sizes float by in backless -- and often almost frontless, held up by sheer willpower, glittering blouses. As if they are in a midsummer night's dream: shawls are a passé accessory for this new breed of wedding-goers who obviously think that their gem or crystal studded lehengas and featherweight georgette sarees and the king's ransom jewelry around their necks and on their wrists and arms will protect them from the cool winds.
The red noses and sniffles tell another story. But never mind, these ladies are emulating Aishwarya Rai: her much photographed backless cholies are the blueprint.
Even the bride is (for that day) Aishwarya Rai, or whosoever may be the current dream icon. It's the Main Madhuri Dixit banna chathi hoon syndrome. Forget the men and women who seem to have walked out of the pages of advertisements in the glossies or down from the big screen, marriages are now being made in 35mm heaven. Bollywood rules - when it's not Hollywood through Bollywood. Its dreamtime: a lifetime's savings go up in a puff. Do I dare say illusion?
Take the wedding themes and décor: Sheesh Mahal (courtesy the freshly colorised Mughal-e-Azam), Taj Mahal (courtesy a spate of films down the ages and the new film by that name). Even the popular backdrops in films (London Bridge and Sydney's ubiquitous Darling Harbour) spring up overnight. There's even a mini Hyderabad House. Rather the façade: inside there's just a huge empty space as those looking for the loo find out to their dismay. Obviously, Kubla Khan's been working overtime for those wanting to keep up with and ahead of the Jainses, if not the Mittals.
The Big Fat Punjabi Weddings keeps getting fatter, and crazier. Wedding planners spread the ceremonies over several farmhouses in their search for the perfect prop, just as art directors of Indian films have different locations for a single song, or scene. For several mothers of the bride it takes as long to plan a wedding as it does for the bride to have a baby it would seem.
What's going on? Trend spotters will tell you that it is the urge to be different, to stand apart and above that is the driving force behind the unquiet desperation. Ironically, in wanting to be different they all end up looking the same. For a while the green sarees with red brocade borders and red blouses became de rigueur after the film Parineeta. Jaya Bhaduri's wardrobe became a template for the mothers of the brides after the phenomenal success of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. And Madhuri Dixit's purple lehenga and choli was replicated in a million households after Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun.
Weddings, once upon a time, used to be about the family, and the larger family of friends. The family served you at wedding banquets, and the songs for the sangeet evenings were composed by family and friends. Today, caterers serve up a pot pourri of a million incompatible dishes, and high decibel songs from Bollywood masquerade as sangeet.
The 'toothless bhua' or poor relatives are likely to be elbowed out of the wedding list by the more photogenic faces of the Beautiful People -- the more designer friendly beings that is.
The wedding planner is beginning to reign supreme. In our confused times when style goes stale faster than fish left out in the sun, it is easier to submit to a wedding planner for marriages. Or for that matter to gurus of every kind. We have been inundated by an army of style gurus, lifestyle gurus, taste arbitrators, makeover experts, healers, facilitators, mentors who tells us how to dress, converse, love or even hate.
Their reach also is into the most private corners of our lives. The media does the rest: the Sunday supplements dictate how to make cocktails, where to eat, who to frequent, who and what to drop. Individuality, quirks if you like, have to be sacrificed at the altar of the design and style gurus, the new diktat-givers. The new mantra is 'cool': I am cool, therefore I am.
The other day I asked an acquaintance why she regularly went to a 'Baba', a guru who never uttered a word. She shifted her chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other and said: "I see everybody there..." rattling off names of Delhi's Page 3 Social Register. The day of the designer guru has arrived.
Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com
