Bombay Diary

Badly Drawn Men

This is the season for marriages, which means time for men to dress badly again. The other evening at a wedding reception in the suburbs, the only man dressed for the occasion was the bridegroom, but one supposes he had no choice. No one else, including the couple’s fathers, wore a suit or an achkan; in fact, they both wore striped shirts as if they were in some gilded prison. Two days later at a South Bombay restaurant, the swish set gathered for a celebratory evening. A dress code was specified but only half the invitees took it seriously, and these were the women.

Contrast this with a wedding I attended in London recently. The restaurant’s ceiling shimmered with golden stars, but that didn’t outshine the glamorous dresses worn by the women guests. Amazingly—to an Indian eye, at least—the men were impeccably attired too. And surprise, surprise, this included the Indian guests, all appropriately dressed, some in suits, others in sherwanis. You see these double standards—dress up in firang land, sab chalta hai back home—particularly from our Bollywood heroes. At Cannes or at the Oscars, they will scramble to get their dinner jackets. But if it’s the Filmfare awards, the macho men will turn up in T-shirts two sizes too small, the better to show their rippling muscles. And damn the occasion.

The Poet Roseate

Book releases are intimate, meaningful affairs, especially if the book is of poetry. The store sets aside 50 chairs, lays out some tea and cookies and waits for a few people to turn up. That’s provided you are not a poet called Pritish Nandy. When you are Pritish Nandy, the game changes. A full-page ad in a popular city newspaper invites one and all to the reading and on the day of the release, Bombay’s Page Three newspaper puts a large picture of the poet on Page One. A full half hour before the appointed time, there is standing room only. Bombay has so many poetry lovers! And so many of them are photographers and TV cameramen! Their large telephoto lenses take up so much space, we are soon gasping for air. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Nandy says, showing a gallant gender bias, “we are here for poetry, not photographs.” The gentlemen with the lenses don’t agree. The dignitaries on the stage battle on. Gulzar talks about how he persuaded Nandy to become a poet again. Chetan Bhagat says something flattering about “the poetry in Gulzarsaab’s song lyrics”. “Really,” says Gulzar, suddenly belligerent, “so tell me then, what do these lines mean?” The only sound you hear is of Chetan Bhagat squirming in his seat.

Shashi Tharoor wears a Sena-saffron kurta to “remind Pritish of his politics” while Anupam Kher wears a tight T-shirt to flatter his own profile. Then comes the moment everyone, especially the photographers, have been waiting for. No, not the poet in full flow, but Aishwarya Rai, surely the most stunning face ever to cast an eye on a poetry page. There is now a scramble for the book. Yes, poetry sells. But as in everything else in life, to sell it needs Bollywood.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

The Miss Indias have been chosen and soon they will be competing with international beauties for the Miss Universe crown. Not long before this, I was invited to a Miss India launch party. This isn’t quite my beat so I hesitated for a very long time, in fact for a full 10 seconds. Then the Call of Duty kicked in, as it has for men all over the world: that onerous task of looking over the female of the species in order to make sure that all’s right with the world.

I went fashionably late at 9.45 for a 9 pm event. I was the first to arrive. Luckily, one of the organisers was present so he took a drink and I took a drink and we shouted pleasantries at each other (yes, the music was loud). Then I noticed the legs. A whole arc of them: long legs, slim legs, bare legs. The bodies attached to them wore short black dresses. Three of them would wear crowns on their heads, but till then all of them were sticking together. They were like feathers in a Japanese fan. When the real crowd began to come in at 11 and the young, single men decided to try their luck, they were faced with this long-legged phalanx which would not part. So the young men sulked into their drinks.

The Bestest Bombay

Suddenly, and with no fanfare, Bombay’s ubiquitous bus service has introduced the smartest coaches in the country. Completely covering the usual air-conditioned single-deckers are larger-than-life photographs of attractive models or filmstars advertising the latest product or movie. You do a double-take because they look transplanted straight from Europe. You can’t see the harried commuters inside because even the windows are covered. As for the passengers, they can look out, but through a gauze, dimly. This makes the view much better all round. And that makes everyone very happy.