Guzaarish & Black: Or a tale about Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Bohemia and Films

A tale from never-never Goa

Dear Sabyasachi, 

I don’t normally write to fashion designers. But I lost my way around Melbourne Central pondering over your unsatisfying answer to my question at the masterclass yesterday. It was most annoying and I missed feeding my 5-month-old baby girl. After that I felt I owed it to myself to demand a debate. 

My question related to your and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s inspirations and references to the two films you discussed: Black & Guzaarish. Why were the inspirations and references so decidedly European? And if the characters were based in never-never land where to do you begin building a costume language for them? 

You began by saying that this was a tiny sample of your huge body of work, and was not representative of your myriad inspirations and references.  

Then you added that you consider yourself a global Indian, who draws inspiration from anywhere and everywhere and your life and work reflects that. And that if I visited a friend’s house and found his life, travels and inspirations decorating his walls, wouldn’t the resulting bohemia enchant me?

I guess, you were saying that the characters of Guzaarish and Black were a result of your inspirations. And you reserve the right to draw your inspiration from anywhere. And the resulting bohemia is enchanting.

At first, I loved your answer. Mainly because after five years of living in five different countries, I am finally moving into my own home. My thoughts are consumed by how do I use this empty space to create a story about my life, thoughts, inspirations and passions. And your comment encapsulated my feelings.

But then, as soon as you moved on to the next question, I realised that your answer called for a counterquestion. 

Isn’t bohemia for the sake of bohemia meaningless? Bohemia, more than anything else, is interesting if it is organic but not if it is overly-constructed.

I would love my friend’s house if I found that the memorabilia decorating the walls truly reflected his or her experiences, travels and passions. But if they were there merely for aesthetics and effect, I would find it pretentious. Like when a friend, who generally disliked Bollywood and didn’t get irony, suddenly placed a 1980s Bollywood poster on her living room wall. It looked fashionable and arresting, but was it interesting? I thought not because it said so little about her. 

Sure creating a gypsy skirt for a nurse in never-never Goa - as you and Bhansali did in Guzaarish - is fashionable and arresting, but is it interesting? 

Sure putting a Parsi lacing on a Michelle McNelly in never-never Shimla - as you did in Black - is fashionable and arresting, but is it interesting?  

Sabyasachi Mukherjee at Hoyt's Melbourne, June 13

And while films belongs to its creators - and I count you among the creators of Black and Guzaarish - doesn’t it equally belong to the characters of the film? 

I felt that while you and Bhansali were true to your own bohemia, the bohemia of the characters of Guzaarish and Black was constructed, stylised and somewhat meaningless. So while you were true to yourself, you failed your characters in the film.

Why would putting-on a garter on Aishwarya Rai in Guzaarish help her get into her character of a Goan nurse more - as you asserted? No Goan nurses wear garters - regardless of whether they are victims of domestic abuse or not. Most wouldn’t even have access to garters.

Now you’ll say that I am over-intellectualising the costume design. I am not. I am telling you exactly why I couldn’t enjoy the two films with such compelling storylines because try as I might, I just couldn’t lose my way into the character’s lives: they were so alien. 

I’ll end this letter now because my baby girl is crying again, and I am sure you wouldn’t want to be responsible for more of her misery. 

But a debate I demand. You name the place and time. 

Curiously yours

Chatnoir: A Mumbaikar in Melbourne

PS: Feel free to pass-on my questions to Mr Bhansali.

Lagerfeld's Bombay: Is he lazy or insightful?

Image stolen from Guardian.co.uk: Sorry Guardian

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director and head designer of the French fashion house Chanel, has just unveiled his pre-fall collection in Paris. And guess what? It's theme is "Paris-Bombay".

Bombay here stands for entire India, of course, much the same way that Bombay and Delhi did for the Centre Pompidou's blockbuster summer exhibition on Indian contemporary art: "Paris-Delhi-Bombay". Two black points to France for unimaginative titles.

What makes Lagerfeld's collection - replete with bindis, bangles, tikkas and pearl necklaces - still cheekier is that fact that he has never actually visited India, let alone Bombay. "It is much more inspiring not to go to places than to go," he reportedly quipped backstage.

Now there are two ways to interpret this act. First, Lagerfeld is lazy. He has put a whole collection together based on his idea of India rather than the reality of the country: much like the Lonely Planet writer who authored a guidebook to Columbia based on the information collected from his Columbian girlfriend without actually visiting the country.

On the other hand, maybe, Lagerfeld is being honest. Perhaps, he just knows his limitations. He is, after all, into the business of inspiring and selling luxury, decadence and aesthetics - three things famously absent in Mumbai. We have immensely rich people in Mumbai but I have never seen the rich live in more discomfort anywhere in the world than they do in Mumbai. Perhaps, Lagerfeld is intelligent enough to recognize that what he is looking for simply doesn't exist in Mumbai. Sometimes, it is indeed more inspiring not to go to places and to live with your myths than to actually visit it and have them crushed.

Vogue and our schizophrenic Indian lives

Vogue vagueness

New year, new article by me – this time in the Vogue magazine. It is a profile of the British Indian restaurateur Geetie Singh. Unfortunately, it is not a terribly good article. It seems I had a particularly bad bout of my on-again-off-again sickness COMMAtitis and littered the copy with all sorts of misplaced commas. As for the magazine’s copy editor? Perhaps, he is a fellow sufferer.

So I am really hoping that most women pick up the issue for the same reason that I ever buy the magazine – to look at the ads. I remember my first look at the British edition around the time the buzz around Vogue’s possible entry into India was growing. I was transfixed – but mostly by the advertisements. Beautiful women in the most gorgeous clothes and accessories made by brands I had only ever seen as fakes in India: Donna Karan, Hermes, Chanel, Calvin Klien.

The articles were as visually stunning as the ads and referred pretty much to the same brands – in fact, it was difficult to tell apart the articles from the ads. It rendered a visual consistency to the magazine and converted it into a stunning temple to fashion. So much so, that by the time I turned the last page, even I – a girl so stubbornly proud of her frizzy hair, kurti, and baggy jeans – was feeling a deep yearning to be slim, beautiful and Chanel adorned.

But this is where I find the Indian Vogue diverging from its international counterparts: its incredible paucity of beautiful ads. To begin with, of the 67 full page ads in its latest issue only 3 refer explicitly to clothes – Levis, Monisha Jaisingh and Ritu Kumar. The largest chunk of the ads, 17 to be exact, belong to Indian jewellery stores: the Manubhais, Nothandasses, Gehnas, Shristis etc etc. And no, the ads don’t show smart, modern everyday wear. It is all heavy, traditional, stone-studded, ready-for-wedding wear. Jewellery is followed by watches (9), furnishing (6), skin products (5) and hotels (4). After this it all goes random with whiskey, chocolates, mid-range Australian wine, hairbands, yachts and even realty companies all finding a corner in this Indian temple to fashion.

What makes the magazine experience surreal is that articles and photo shoots – especially, the photo shoots – continue to refer to D&G, Nina Ricci, Christian Louboutins, Roberto Cavalli and gang as if the Nanubhais and Nothandasses never happened. 

To me this gap between the ads and the articles of Vogue says a lot about the wide gap between the reality, pretentions and aspirations of middle class India, and the resulting schizophrenia. We already believe that we are a world superpower without acknowledging the illiteracy, poverty, dirt, pollution and corruption endemic to our lives. Instead, we simply ensconce ourselves in air-conditioned bubbles inside our flats, cars, offices, malls, restaurants, hotels and nightclubs dreaming our rose-tinted dreams of a time when Nina Ricci and Christian Louboutin will be just down the road.

Maybe, that time will arrive. I only hope that the road leading to these stores will not be jammed with traffic, beggars in tatters, dust and pollution.