Malavika’s Mumbaistan: My Mother’s Salwar at Cannes

The champagne at these events like the conversation is mostly flat, the complexions are usually caked and sallow and the laughter is inevitably hollow. The challenge is the pressure to look red-carpet ready, get into the right photographs, schmooze with the right crowd and not spill your drink

As someone whose mother’s sartorial lapse while attending the Cannes Film Festival over six decades ago, could have created an international incident, or launched a worldwide fashion trend, I really don’t know what to make of the current fuss about what Sara Ali Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan or Urvashi Rautela wear or don’t wear.

Malavika’s Mumbaistan: My Mother’s Salwar at Cannes

As far as I’m concerned, they could turn up wearing kulyaks made of clam shells or entire telephone booths on their heads, if it gets them the necessary attention, because of what transpired when my mother accompanied my father, Rajbans Khanna to the prestigious film festival in 1957, when his film Gotama the Buddha was nominated for a Palme D’or and subsequently won a Special Mention for Best Director, is far more hilarious.

And my mother never stopped telling us the story with delight.

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Flushed with standing ovations, praise from the likes of Jean Cocteau and lines of international producers queuing up to meet them with briefcases full of cash, after their film’s screening, my thirty-something parents, who until then had been living like poor church- mice in modest, community digs in the back streets of the Riviera, instantly moved to a better hotel on the promenade, treating themselves to a week of wine, roses and heady celebration.

There was just one issue: Having no access to international fashion trends or stylists at that time, my parents had packed their suitcases with their modest home-made attire for the festival. In my mother’s case, it was her few silk saris and a pouch of silver and tribal jewellery for the purposes of ‘evening wear’; but for the rest of the day, all my mother had carried were a couple of phiran - like garments, designed for maximum comfort as ‘tunics’, along with her grandmother’s robust, voluminous, gathered- salwars, made in Rawalpindi, most likely in a previous century.

Now, whereas wearing these garments in the humble digs they’d first stayed in might have passed, you can imagine how awkward my mother had felt, while wearing these strange outfits at the snooty hotel, they now found themselves in.

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What made matters worse was when my mother had to wash these garments: Snooty hotels don’t provide washing lines and of course they could not afford laundry service, so all my mum could think of was to wash them in the bathtub and hang them out to dry, overnight on the balcony of their room, which overlooked the celebrated French promenade and of course- remove them from sight, the next morning.

So, imagine her mortification when the next day, my father who’d risen earlier, spotted a small crowd of people gazing open-mouthed up in his direction, from the pavement below. During the course of the night, my mother’s elephantine salwar from Rawalpindi, had billowed, parachute- like down and now lay spread in all its humongous glory, like a beached whale on the pavement, attracting a crowd of bewildered passers, who had begun a discussion on what on earth it could be and how monstrous the creature who it belonged to, must be.

This is why I guess for me, the shape and size of the current OTT -Lady Gaga -Met Gala- inspired outfits, seen this week at Cannes, aren’t a big deal.

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No, the point of this column is another one: Timing.

To highlight how much has changed, since those days, when my parents, poor as church mice and with hardly any support from back home, had managed against all odds to become the toast of Cannes, for that one brief summer in their lives. (And yes, even though she always denied it, my mother with her modest saris and simple kohl- lined eyes, had outshone most of the stars on the carpet that year- and what’s more I have photographic evidence to prove it!)

The point I am making is that had my parents met with similar success at Cannes today, their lives would have changed dramatically because of it.

With adequate infrastructural, governmental and media support, they might have been able to consolidate the hard-won triumph that had come their way.

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But in fact, by the time my parents returned from their French sojourn, they’d happily spent most of the money they’d received. And though there had been many promising international film projects proposed by European and American producers, for one reason or another- nothing had fructified.

Given the lack of an international communication network, the dismal socio-political milieu and the isolation that India existed in at that time, perhaps this was not surprising.

(Indeed, if one glances through the list of the handful of other filmmakers whose films have received recognition at Cannes, you will note that their careers hadn’t benefitted dramatically from it either.)

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Things were simply not geared in those times to work the way they do today. No hype machines, no agents to fix deals, no publicists and stylists to amp up the volume and no social media to disseminate every minute detail like these days, where one- film fresh models and brand ambassadors from India walk the red carpet as if they owned it.

And of course, it is a moment to celebrate and be grateful for. Finally, Indians are getting the support, opportunities and recognition they deserve. Having had the privilege of witnessing first-hand, how the success of Indian beauty queens at international pageants in the nineties had opened up a universe of opportunities and careers back home in the beauty, fitness, entertainment and fashion industries, I know that the fact that Aliaa is the face of Gucci and Priyanka Chopra is right up there in her Bulgari gown is a good thing and augurs well for us all;

(Though personally, I’m a jeans and tees girl and truly believe that the things women are made to go through at these events: starving themselves and undergoing all kinds of procedures prior to them, then teetering dangerously on ankle-breaking stilettos, weighed down by a tonnage of garments and jewels while negotiating their way up onerous stairs and being expected to smile, wave and have their pictures taken for world coverage, IMHO is one of the most primitive forms of female cruelty and torture invented, but that’s a personal view)

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No, what women wear is their personal choice; my quarrel with these events, having attended a fair share of some of the most glamorous ones, as part of invited media (like a fashion show where models swayed up and down a moonlight night on the Great wall of China, in the presence of the great man himself; an all-night Bacchanal feast at a castle attended by A -list Hollywood stars in Rome, hosted by Bulgari; a champagne- laced weekend at a Swiss skiing resort organised by a luxury watchmaker) is how deathly dull, meaningless and painful they really are.

To begin with, the pressure to look good, get into the right photographs, schmooze with the right crowd and not spill your drink is challenging enough.

Indeed, Alia Bhatt who never fails to say it like it and appears to manage to keep a firm head on her shoulders, in spite of the glamour and success she experiences, gave us a little insight into the topic recently, when she wryly referred to needing Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s help to visit a loo at the Met Gala. Worn down by tons of cloth, artfully designed in most cases, to make the wearer trip on live camera, is an endurance test I’d rather avoid - try going to the loo in those circumstances.

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So this is what I want to share with those of you who watch these celebrities at these mega extravaganzas and events while wishing you could be there too: no matter how wonderful they appear from the outside, they’re actually hard work, not much fun and believe me, most of those who attend them regularly, know that they are just a means to an end, one rung up their career ladder and can’t wait to get into their jammies at home to eat pizza with their loved ones and watch the proceedings on telly.

Because whether your wardrobe contains a Pucci bought in Paris, or a salwar made- in -Pindi what really matters in the end is what you do with your one wild and precious life, once the party’s over.