E-Paper
Witerari: Overdressed to skill, India Cannes do it
As for the style quotient, the Cannes film festival opening saw, other than the staple Aishwarya to Urvashi, Bollywood’s up-and-coming actor Sara Ali Khan making her debut
It’s that time of the year, again. Come May, and India gets a chance to show the world it Cannes do it.
Season 2023 at the French Riviera may carry more weight than the mere red carpet wait.
The post-Oscar outing lends more weight to the Indian Pavilion.
With the latest Academy Award under her belt, Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga and Co bring to the Cannes pret parade an upped substance quotient, while the rest of the Indian contingent, as usual, is mostly about style quotient.
With four Indian films also making it to the fest in 2023, Cannes may now filter the Bollywood presence through a changing lens. A lens tinted with more substance, not mere style.
As for the style quotient, the Cannes film festival opening saw, other than the staple Aishwarya to Urvashi, Bollywood’s up-and-coming actor Sara Ali Khan making her debut.
That her Indian twist — the crystal-and-pearl lehenga look courtesy designers Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla — did not go down too well with the fashion police showed that Indianness needs to put its best foot forward, but without it looking like an over-decorated Christmas tree.
One troll summed up Sara’s overexposed and overdone Indianness-gone-wrong thus, “Cannes gayi hai ya shaadi pe?”
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan ‘s ghastly ‘n’ giantly silver-hood look amplified India’s oops and downs. What with the ensuing meme fest calling her “chicken shawarma lag rahi hai”.
Cannes 2023 thus looks more about overdressing or getting from the fashion police a dressing.
Overdressed to Underdressed
In stark contrast, the month of May also brings back memories of a certain under-dressing.
The month of May, in those golden days of girlhood gone by, was synonymous with “pettis” and “pettis” (cartons) arriving from family orchards. They signalled the grand arrival of the King of Fruits. The Mango.
Those days of yore were synonymous not just with mangoes galore. They spelt a certain ritual that unfolded, layer by layer, as did the “pettis”.
The May ritual unveiled somewhat thus. Tubs loaded with the luscious fruit were put outside in the shade under the huge mango trees hemming the home courtyard. Into these tubs were tossed mammoth slabs of ice to chill the mangoes.
Then, our parents parked us on those baby chairs in a circle around the tubs full of this first “mehmaan” of May. A much-awaited “mehmaan” for whom the taste buds can’t help but croon, “Tu cheez badi hai mast mast”.
The unwrapping of the “pettis” saw us kids dancing around to dig into its contents, a performance that perhaps bore poetic resemblance to a precursor of Naatu Naatu.
But before we kids could launch off on our gorging spree, there popped up a parental diktat.
The logic behind it was practical and simple. Those were not days of an iconic “Lalita ji” driving home the stain-conquering virtues of Surf with a “kharidari mein samajhdari” catchphrase for parental consumption. Nor were those times of an Ariel going on an advertising overdrive that promised to magically banish “ziddi daag”.
It was thus this losing battle with “ziddi daag” that governed the parental diktat defining childhood ‘s under-dressing, oops undressing, narrative.
“Off with your frocks!” came the command.
The curious case of attacking the King of Fruits, defrock stock and barrel.
chetnakeer@yahoo.com
