Friday, August 13, 2010

Sartorial Musings

So my friend missmalini – the ubiquitous, irrepressible and ever-happy Malini Agarwal – asked all her men friends, including myself, to help her write an article for Vogue. She wanted to edify the dame folk of Bombay and beyond about what men would like to see women wearing. So I thought to write, “Very little”, but being the pedant that I am, I added a little to that terse comment and let heave with the rusty brain. And got to thinking: what do I want women to wear?

I think the best thing anybody can wear are abstracts – a nice smile, a great attitude, her heart on her sleeve. And very little else. And the best dressed are those who wear what they think looks good on them. I like women who adopt an understated sartorial elegance. Someone who, despite her youth, can be comfortable in a cotton sari. The whole idea of ostentation puts me off, so simple yet elegant goes well. Though I usually look at women’s clothes to see how well they go with my floor, if they insist on wearing something, these are a few ensembles that I like to see:

* Cotton sari – regular wear
* Those cotton FabIndia pajamas and a ganji/vest/singlet
* No heels
* Shorts and T-shirt with gladiator sandals
* LBD but no heels
* Bright floral summer dress
* Did I mention no heels?
* Anything easy to take off
* G-strings (only)
* No heels

What I don’t like seeing women in are:

* Bikinis if you don’t have a body for it
* Tank tops with your stomachs oozing out
* Heels
* Low-waist jeans if you’re going to keep showing me your arse-crack

That’s about it.

Why the aversion to heels? I feel the same way about them that I feel about whalebone corsets and Chinese footbinding. No amount of looking good justifies self-flagellation. And I just can’t bear to see a woman tottering about on half a square millimetre of leather surface just so that it makes her look good. And I like pretty feet, so any that look like they’ve been through some machinery are a total turn-off. So there.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Let the Reader Beware


I’m afraid of saying anything about this for fear of being branded sexist, but some of the chick blog writing I’ve come across in my travails through life has blown my socks off. Check out the following shining examples of female writing. It’s very chick, but some of it’s very chic. And pastel, and pink and fuzzy-touchy-feely. But really really good. Here:

Jyothi Rajamohan: Caveat lector
Anna Joseph: the life of i
Saumya Kulshreshtha: Nascent Emissions
Tanushree Rai: Athena’s Notebook

Good fun all round!

Friday, July 30, 2010

All Sound and Fury

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. In Bombay it falls in spades. And then some.

I have watched that romance spark in the eyes of the common or garden variety Bombayer the moment you mention rain. I have seen the gentle glow seep through their bodies, the minds numbed by the exhilaration of raindrops falling on their heads, the hearts aflame with the delights of the fresh smell of rain-drenched earth – matched only by the maternal smell of freshly-baked bread. I have watched all this and shaken my head in utter confusion, muttering, “Strange customs these natives have.”

Because, see, the only thing that can make this stinkhole any less fit for human habitation is the bloody monsoons. If there is anything that can possibly make this cesspit resemble the Augean stables (err, before they were cleaned by Hercu… (I’m assuming those who read this are familiar with Greek mythology. In the immortal words of the SMS generation, “My bad.”), it is the falling of the gentle rain upon the place beneath. Which ole Bill Shakespeare got right; this place is beneath even rain.

The smell of fresh rain on sun-scorched earth – the smell that has given billions of Indians raison d’être since the beginning of it all – doesn’t exist here; it’s replaced by the smell of fresh rain on cement, on disintegrating tarmac, on steaming dog fæces, on desiccated lives and emaciated hearts. After the first, brief, supernova-like moment of epiphany and exhilaration is over, after the first rain has made us happy to be alive again, reality claws its way back through the dark lining in the silver cloud. It is Bombay in the rains again. The roads will be clogged with traffic, muck and bad temper again. Malaria will be back as the new black, rickshaw-drivers (those of erstwhile blue-blood) will turn into were-arseholes again and my Crocs will become utterly useless. Hallelujah! We are glad to be free, human and at the mercy of the BMC.

Which is why I think I can understand why the panegyric to the monsoon. It is the gift-wrapping, the packaging, the sleight-of-hand that hides the real truth. They profess to like the rains because they’re stuck with it. Even if they didn’t, they can’t lump it. It’s there. It always will be. So might as well like it.

But yes, that one moment of epiphany – that’s worth the life. It really is.


Sunday, March 14, 2010

Like Watching Paint Dry

So my good friend Dax suggested I start the second Starkindler chronicles. I told him I didn’t have a muse. Or amuse. It’s not funny.

So I’m now in Goa shooting for a new reality show that I have to supervise. It involves young, ostensibly sexy young men and women who are trying to test their relationship and choosing between love and cash. All I can say is that it takes all sorts to make a world.

I believe that the world is divided into two sorts of people – exhibitionists and voyeurs. We are all, to varying degrees, exhibit both characteristics, but one more than another. And there’s the rub, for in today’s world of ultra-voyeuristic Warholism, the demand of exhibitionists has gone off the charts. Which gives opportunity to the millions out there to differentiate themselves, earn their place in the sun, on television and, hopefully, in the annals of history.

They’re close; their very much in the anals of history all right. Because though one has been exposed to their exposers for many a moon now, one never gets over the desire to bare it all to the public. It is a mad race to the screens, a scramble to be seen, heard, loved, hated – anything but ignored. It’s a result of the ennui that has followed our explosion into the consciousness of the world and each other. From public exhibitionism like reality shows and the like to private exposition like blogs and social networking, it’s a glut of people, a smorgasbord of personalities, behaviour and raves and rants. People are everywhere, and no man, indeed, is an island any more.