Witerati: All in the game

Euro 2024 and Wimbledon have been a welcome diversion for our nation of netizens fixated on the Ambani wedding to the Deepika Padukone baby bump

Thank heavens that the season of real semi-finals and finals has kicked in.

Thank god for small mercies, that the Ambani finale didn’t coincide with the Euro 2024 final. (ANI)

What with the Ambanis dishing out one pre-wedding after another, it had begun to seem that their brand of “pre-weddings” were the new quarter finals or semi-finals.

From the Ambanis’ Jamnagar jamboree to the European pre-wedding cross-continental cruise, our nation of couch potatoes and netizens had begun to feel that they were watching a string of quarter finals, the finale of which was way far off. (It’s another story that this string of nuptial quarter-finals came riding mega million strings, of emeralds and solitaires dripping from the necks of Nita Ambani to Radhika Merchant).

This was one quarter-final or semi-final that could easily out-rival the soccer showstopper. For it boasted the best bits of Italy to France.

Thank goodness that the nation finally found something better to do than to measure Deepika Padukone’s baby bump girth, or to assess the Ambani band baaja baraat’s worth. A baraat that came riding Nita Ambani’s ₹500-crore choker with emeralds as mammoth as gilt-edged credit cards, to Anant Ambani’s ₹67-crore Patek Philippe wristwatch to Radhika Merchant’s Tamara Ralph ₹1000-crore princess gown on the mediterranean cruise.

First, the T-20 World Cup, then Wimbledon and the Euro 2024 have, thankfully, proven to be welcome distractions from the ‘bump-y’ road that the fixations of couch potatoes and netizens was navigating.

Thank god for small mercies, that the Ambani finale didn’t coincide with the Euro final. Else, the poor Indians’ cervicals or carpal muscles would have been totally divided, in terms of loyalty towards India Inc’s royalty.

In the middle of the Ambani’s opulent overload of band baaja baraat, heralding the unabashed gilded Indian billionaire’s day out on the global stage, what came as a whiff of fresh air was Bollywood actor Sonakshi Sinha’s simple registered marriage.

Ah, but that looked more the exception than the rule.

All this fixation brings us to some key concerns.

From both points of view of the couch potato and those dishing out designer weddings, how much is too much?

This year-long pre-wedding culture that the Ambanis have opulently showcased, starring a global guest list from Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to Rihanna and Justin Bieber, how does it augur for the fatigue quotient?

Doesn’t this endless round of nuptial quarter-finals, the billionaire brand of pre-weddings, ring in a fatigue factor by the time the finale rolls out?

Or does the great Indian couch potato have a better fatigue quotient than lesser global counterparts, having been brought up on a robust diet of multi-starrers, from “Sholay” to “Hum Aapke Hain Kaun”?

Or perhaps the Indian couch potatoes’ eyeballs have mastered the art of multi-tasking. They can’t have enough of this flitting from one ball (at Euro 2024) to the other ball (on the Ambani dance floor).

As the eyeballs of couch potatoes do their multi-tasking, it may entail a battle of the ball other than the one rolling out at Euro 2024.

The Indian couch potatoes’ eyeballs have been battling not just FOMO Vs MOMO.

Add to these the newest acronym one would like to coin about what the eyeballs may now be suffering.

The curious case of FOPO (Fatigue of Pre-wedding Overload).

chetnakeer@yahoo.com