Idiot Box Dressing

So what do you think about the fashion boom? As soon as I am asked this question,I start thinking in clumps instead of fluid sentences. I buy time with a tentative smile,afraid that if I speak,I would only blabber. A visual commotion turns my mind into a boiler room. I imagine Kantaben having a loud argument with Bhattacharya mashima over a backless bridal choli; Chennai women in “corporate” Kanjeevaram silks,and ladies of Ludhiana playing out a Parisian parody. Where the pulsating imagery of avant garde on the ramp is made timid by conformist clothes in fashion stores. Where men are no longer averse to wearing lilac shirts,but women are averse to men who wear them. What is fashion in India?

Indian television has some answers. It is the visual reference of a fashion researcher’s confused state of mind. The idiot box is Indian fashion’s boiler room,where 300 style statements simmer,yet none makes sense. Here,style hangs perpetually undefined between Madhuri Dixit’s overdone Sabyasachi saris on Jhalak Dikhla Jaa and Mallika Sherawat’s ongoing affair with clingy bling on Chak Dhoom Dhoom. Between music director Anu Malik’s frightening ensembles on Indian Idol shows and Bigg Boss contestant Veena Malik’s obsession with high heels. Between Rakhi Sawant’s tireless tack on Rakhi Ka Insaaf and Amitabh Bachchan’s tiresome sharp suits on Kaun Banega Crorepati.

It is easy for any writer to demolish the faintest notion of fashion on TV. I am tempted too. But whether Shekhar Suman’s sagging style makes us wince,or Helen’s guest appearance in a subdued salwar kameez makes us smile,I realise that the small screen reflects “fashion in India” more than fashion weeks,theme parties or red carpets. In more ways than one,the small screen is about Lakshmi (wealth),Rashtra (country) and Samaj (society): the three big ideas of our nation explored by author Patrick French in his new book India: A Portrait.

Consider the retail boom of the last decade. It threw up a million more choices in dressing. It could,but didn’t radically revolutionise the way TV dresses. The small screen absorbed everything that the retail boom spewed out,but strictly on its own terms. Smriti Irani’s saas-bahu saris in soaps,Malaika Arora’s body hugging dresses on dance shows,Salman Khan’s ripped jeans in Dus Ka Dum,and the multi-coloured mess that anchors like Hussain Kuwajerwala wear in the name of costumes.

No boutique,stylist,sari supplier,fashion store,jewellery or garment designer has been able to douse the two big statements that television made in the last 10 years. The importance of regional dressing,and the sway of rani-pink over any gown,dress,Birkin bag or bikini. There is a lavish display of Lakshmi on TV,but it is determined by the ground rules of our Samaj that throbs unafraid inside the Rashtra. Indianness is still the lead story. Fashion only has a supporting role.

Malls may give us the impression of a homogenised India,where a Tamil looks like a Punjabi,but TV soaps move away from this generalisation. They show us families in ethnic costumes from Gujarat and Maharashtra,to UP and Rajasthan. There is no confusion between a widow in pastel saris and the dripping-with-sindoor married woman,or between a Thakur in a black silk sherwani and a village bumpkin in a coarse dhoti; between a Jat Amma in Na Aana is Des Laado and a Rajasthani Dadisa in Balika Vadhu.

The small screen authentically represents the clash in clothing between smalltown and urban India. What’s even more curious is the way TV converts everyone who walks into its studios to its own cause. Whether it is a reality show judge,a participant,a celeb anchor or a special guest,everyone gets quickly swallowed by one TV tribe or the other. Madhuri Dixit looks like a docile bahu; Mallika Sherawat a Zoom TV anchor; Anu Malik a sethji,baapji,whatever; Shekhar Kapur an almost-broadminded uncle from Mumbai; Saroj Khan a jewellery store. When Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan recently visited the Bigg Boss studio to banter with Salman Khan,they looked frumpier than they had in their last many appearances. That’s what TV does to people. It makes them one of its own. It pushes everyone into what Indian fashion really is at the moment — a primordial soup.

So how do you describe fashion in India? Watch TV,this is what I have learnt to say now.

Sorry,fashion weeks.