Sacred Insanity: April 2006

The time, most personal floating in great fragments of enigma, when That Woman took stock of the year gone by, met old friends, acquaintances, competitors and rivals…and made new friends, acquaintances etc. But this year proved to be a little different. And this year, like the Lakme India Fashion Week she felt split in two as well.

She had been present at the fashion week since it began, in 2000. As an Asst. Producer with an American TV crew, which was a great thing then ‘cos she was still in college and foreign TV crews paid weekly and in dollars!

And when you’re 20, and living on pocket money, $1200 for a week is not a bad deal at all. So That Woman and Best-est Friend moonlighted at the LIFW for an entire week and got badly hooked to the lovely creative energy there. In 2001, they were in film school and LIFW was reason to bunk boring classes for a week.

In 2002, the Commies of the class sneered at them for being associated with a frivolous, mindless fashion event for people who didn’t have any real work and real concerns. People like That Woman, who refused to go to a Narmada Bachao dharna for the and waxed eloquent in its defence .
2003 was a tough call.

They had passed out of film school, and That Woman, as commitment phobic as ever, refused to follow the herd and join one of the various TV channels. She took the plunge, and along with Best-est Friend, formed a tiny company that managed to get a lot of work outsourced to them by various production houses abroad. Being an entrepreneur was fun, and the first assignment they got was to cover the fashion week completely on their own for the same American TV channel!

It proved to be a tough task but they pulled it off, with the help of a few friends doubling up as assistants, wanting to be a part of fashion week. The event that year, was at the NCPA in Bombay. 2003 and 2004 were the same, but fashion week happened in Delhi, at the lovely venue The Grand.

back at the NCPA and That Woman knew she had come full circle. In more ways than one. She was no longer an assistant with no decision making capacity whatsoever.

She was not making shows for an American company either. Instead, she and Best-est Friend were called to join the themselves as producers. And from that vantage point, everything looked different.

There’s a most awesome buzz at the Fashion Week. A buzz that’s indescribable. But almost similar to the buzz on a film set, only ten times magnified.

The Buzz that happens only when loads of young talented designers, photographers, media people, choreographers, set designers, make-up artists, DJs, buyers and various other “creative types” congregate in the same space-time continuum for a week. And of course the tones of uber-fabulous clothes and accessories! The Buzz can never be captured on the TV cameras, and sadly, those who’ve never been to a fashion week, will always think of it as a frivolous fashion event and keep ignoring the fact that its poised to become a Rs 2000Cr industry!

And for a designer, his show becomes his sacred personal space which allows him to express himself in more ways than one. had stunning clothes and great music. And the last section of the show had a very well done remix of Saare Jahaan Se Achcha by The Midival Punditz.

The section was called and the motif was a digitally printed black and white image of two young men holding each other and India Rocks written diagonally in corners in bright fluorescent fuchsia. Something happened in the audience as the first 4 models walked on the ramp real fast. The image of the two men and India Rocks was on skirts, tops, bags, corsets… She looked at Pi, who was wiping away tears from his eyes.

Suddenly all the gay men in the audience stood up and applauded really loudly for the longest time ever. And That Woman was in awe of that entire moment.
“For the first time, someone’s made a public statement about gay men in India and that they are as much a part of the country as straight men are.

Even though they are treated rather harshly, often with no tolerance and moral policing, they are Indians who are proud to be Indians and think India Rocks. No matter what. And they could be accepted here!

” Pi told her later, still looking stunned.
Day 1 this year, she noticed The Buzz was completely, mindblowingly different. There were lots of new faces… a whole new crop of assistants.

Where were the old ones? All the people she had known for all these years? The Fashion Week buddies she had hung out with at mealtimes, exchanging gossip?

…They’d all moved up too! They were now fashion editors at big time magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle and the soon-to-be-launched Marie Claire. Design assistants were making their fashion week debuts as designers showcasing their collections on the ramp.

Like her, they had all come full circle too. Like her, they too were now grooming a new crop of young assistants how to watch a fashion show. Teaching them what cut, construction and silhouette meant.

Teaching them the importance of buyers at the event. Talking of buyers, where were the familiar faces? They didn’t come ‘cos the event and the Indian fashion industry was no longer a distant rumble for them.

It had turned into a mega event meant to be noticed. Which explained why stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Selfridges, Browns, Harrods had sent in their Vice Presidents and C.E.

O.’s to check out the event instead of younger executives.
Fashion Week teaches you to be an individual and to assert that individuality.

It’s about pursuing your dreams, not being afraid of setbacks and failures, gritting your teeth and standing tall only to return again next year in a new improved avatar! And there’s no glamour. A designer slogs hard with several darzis 6-10 months prior to the event, deals with bank loans and various other mundane issues to come up with a collection, which is worn by top models and is given its 15 minutes of fame and glamour.

After which, is the litmus test. Right there and then! If your audience is staring at the models, either all of them are at a fashion show for the first time, or they hate your clothes.

But if they’re staring at your clothes, you know you’ve done it! Your success is toasted right away.
And where That Woman was concerned, the highlight of this year’s event were the three new designers, called , from the graduating batch of NID who’d been given the chance to participate after a rigorous selection process.

She made it a point to attend their show and requested others to do so too. Nothing hurts a first time designer more than seeing a number of empty seats staring back defiantly when he comes on the ramp to take a bow. It’s unfair, to say the least when there were the same old complacent designers trying to hide their mediocrity behind a Bollywood bandwagon, either on the runway or on the front row.

So in her first decision-making moment, she changed the run order of the episodes. Cutting down air time from a few such complacent designers and allocating it to the Gen Next designers, thus giving them an entire section of their own. These were people who’d be waiting to watch the show on air.

Waiting to show their friends, family and acquaintances what there moments on the runway were like.
So while an actor or actress on the ramp definitely added the glamour quotient, she added in her Post Show Review section Albert Morris of Browns, London hailing the young as “the next Sabyasachi” and how we, as Indians are responsible for ensuring that our talent stays here and doesn’t wither away in the prestigious anonymity that being John Galliano’s assistant would offer. Rahul is off to Milan soon for an internship, Shahzad Kalim is back from one with Versace and good old Sabyasachi was a permanent fixture in the front row of all these shows.

Happy to lend his support, advice and infectious laugh. Knowing well, that he had been there and was still doing that. Weaving his magic, in more ways than one.

He was an inspiration for young designers like Rahul and Samar to take up the cause for the dying art of weaving in Kerala and Bhagalpur.
And like Albert said, it’s up to us, as Indians, to nurture our talent. And feel extremely proud when these very people represent the country at highly competitive platforms like the London Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week.

And watch life come full circle for them as well!
***
That Woman was approached by a magazine editor who wanted her to write a “relationship advice” column in her magazine. “You know, like you use real life examples from your relationship and the lessons you learn from it and how it’s helped you and your boyfriend.

Do you get what I’m trying to say?” she asked with the optimism of someone who had too many bright ideas but too few people to comprehend them.
That Woman paused to let the question die a dignified death before telling her, “No, I don’t get that because I have no current real life examples to talk about.

Do you get what I’m trying to say?”
“Oh no problem! You can pretend to be in a relationship and go along with the advice bit.

How would anybody know?” she persisted.
“Can’t I do it without the ‘being in a relationship’ element?

” That Woman asked.
“No, darling! You’d simply sound more credible if the readers thought you were speaking from current experience.

They’d relate to you more and identify with your situation to improve theirs! Don’t you get it?”
That Woman really didn’t.

She was worried that “the readers” from all around the country were going to figure out and expose her as a fraud. Who was she to be giving relationship advice? If she was so smart, why was she home alone on Saturday night trying to come up with all that bullshit?

Would she be a relationship imposter because she was not currently in a relationship, has not been able to maintain a relationship, and does not have any prospects for a new relationship? Nor does she have a funny term for this predicament.
While women are certainly extremely adept at faking it – from faking our hair color, breasts, bodies, we've even faked fur and leather.

She couldn’t help but wonder, has fear of being alone suddenly raised the bar on faking? Are we faking more then orgasms? Are we faking entire relationships?

Is it better to fake it than be alone? That Woman still believed in love despite all evidence to the contrary, and she believed in soulmates, although lately she’d been wondering if hers just took a wrong turn, got lost and was too stubborn to ask for directions. She was out there, baby.

She was looking. But she also had other things to do along with that. Career and such like.

She felt like the tree in the forest. If no one saw it fall, did it really ever fall? In this situation it meant that if a tree falls in the forest and no one makes a movie about it or writes about it, who cares?

So she thought of accepting the assignment as a fun thing and maybe her first work of fiction! But that was all it was. A thought.

Awesome to imagine herself in this ideal situation where she had a fling with all the beautiful men she met. Had no career issues, weight issues, wardrobe issues, money issues, maid issues, family issues…Phew! Where she’d get asked out by every man within a 3 feet radius and men would run over each other to buy her a drink at the club.

And when she’d dance wearing those killer stilettos, her feet won’t hurt and people around her would stare in awe and might even applaud. Then she’d pick up one of the men and bring him home and have fantastic sex. Always have fantastic sex, because, in a fantasy everything was perfect.

And then she’d realize that this random guy from the club turned out to be her soulmate. She’d be madly in love with him and he’d be even more madly in love with her and…
Hello? Where are the relationship issues?

Well, there bursts the bubble. If she had to fake a relationship, she’d rather fake one which is perfect. I mean, if she didn’t have dispatch deadlines from channels to deal with in this fantasy, why should she have any other sort of issues at all?

Was she okay with letting “the readers” get a voyeuristic peep into a non-existent life? She knew people out there who were doing it… in magazine columns, in popular blogs. And she’d never figured out how they found validation in the whole world of pretty sounding lies they’d created for themselves.

How would it help if she let a bunch of random strangers believe she was this person living this great life where she got over every little relationship hiccup with a smile and a twitch of her nose? Why could she not be the regular, single working girl who concentrated on her career while hoping other pieces of her life would magically fall in place? And doing all this while trying not to hit rock bottom or lowering her standards almost to the point of no return?

If it were a blog, she could be anonymous and lie away to glory. But in a popular magazine, which even she was a fan of? And was read by friends, acquiantances etc.

..?

Wouldn't they know, and find her to be slightly weird?
The thought continues to bother her even after a week. She still hasn’t found the answers.

And now, she puts it out here for the world to ponder over too as she goes back to the maddest ever dispatch deadline of one episode per day.
The fruits of this labor of love are up on air on Zee Café at 9:30 PM every evening starting April 10th through April 15th.
And ending in a two hour finale on Zee TV at 6:30 PM on April 16th.