I am getting married in the morning...

If the wedding season comes, can the Bridezilla be far behind?

Whenever the wedding season rolls around, I am always put in mind of that TV series that was aired a couple of years back in India. Bridezillas, it was called, to reference brides and Godzilla, and it portrayed what monsters some women turned into in the run up to their weddings. The to-be brides featured made insane demands of their families and friends, micro-managed things until they had run everyone mad, and in the process, spent ludicrous amounts of money that they could often ill-afford.

The series rang true with me – and no doubt, for countless other Indian viewers – because we have all been witness to a bride or two (okay, let’s make that an even dozen) going into overdrive, and then into meltdown, as she prepares for her Big Day (yes, it is always spelt with capital letters). 

And now that the season of wedding madness is upon us again, I find myself surrounded by more Bridezillas than I can keep track of. There’s the one who insists on flying down to London to buy a white lace wedding dress from Alexander McQueen – just like Kate Middleton, you know! – even though she will only get to wear it at a pre-wedding cocktail party (the wedding itself stars a Abu-Sandeep red lengha; or was it Tarun Tahiliani? I can’t really keep up!). There’s the one who is planning a bachelorette party (don’t you dare say ‘hen party’; that’s so infra dig) in Ibiza, and flying down all 36 of her close friends for that (Daddy dearest picks up the tab, of course). There’s the one who has changed the entire décor of a chateau in Champagne, so that it fits with the ivory and gold theme of her wedding dinner. And so it goes…

I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to take these young ladies aside, pour them a cold glass of water (or champagne, if that will do the trick), and ask them to calm the hell down. It is a wedding, for God’s sake, not a Karan Johar production!

But maybe that’s just the problem. We have been force-fed so many images of extravagant weddings set in exotic locales in our Bollywood blockbusters that we feel obliged to recreate them in real life as well, no matter what the expense or inconvenience involved. So, everything must be ‘designer’: from the wedding hall, the mandap, the overall décor, the outfits of the bride, groom, and their immediate families. And just like in the movies, everything must be colour-coordinated to within an inch of its life. Why, even the menu must be ‘designed’ by some celebrity chef or the other, to keep in with the overall theme!

Far be it for me to begrudge any happy bride her big day, but I wonder if perhaps she would be happier if she relaxed a tiny bit; if she went with the flow instead of playing the control freak?

Well, if any of these soon-to-be-married ladies want to take the less-stressful route to marriage, here is my two cents worth of advice to them:

• Keep that wedding lengha nice and light. If you need to support it with heavy-duty suspenders, then you don’t need it. (Those bruises will be difficult to explain on your honeymoon anyway, when you are sunning yourself on the beach in an itsy-bitsy bikini.) If you need two attendants to hold it up so that you can walk down to the mandap, then walk away from it now. Be as blingy as you like; but keep the fabric and work lightweight. You should be wearing that outfit; the outfit should not be wearing you down.
• You’ve probably already blown the budget on the wedding. So, at least be sensible about your honeymoon. Do you really need to buy two first class tickets to Los Angeles? Cancel that and use the money to book yourself into the best suite at the best hotel in Udaipur or Jodhpur (or even Agra; it does host the most famous monument to love, after all). People fly into these destinations from all over the world for special occasions. Don’t turn up your nose at them just because they are next door.
• Keep your mom and grandmom’s jewelry just the way it is. Don’t reset it in some hideous new-fangled design. Believe me, you will be glad you left it well alone a few years down the line. And if you are buying new stuff, then choose well. Buy one heavy-duty piece if you must, but be warned that it will live thereafter in your bank locker anyway. So try and invest in pieces that you can wear for parties and dinners rather than weddings; you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck with these.
• Most of all try and remember that it’s not all about the wedding; at the end of the day it is the marriage that counts. And beginning married life plain broke, frazzled, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown is the not the best of starts at all!

Storm in a T-cup

Given the amount of squabbling on its timelines, should we just rename Twitter as Bicker?

Just a thought. Do you think they should rename Twitter as Bicker? It certainly seems apt given how it has rapidly become a forum for people to squabble about everything in short bursts of 140 characters. Lovers quarrel bitterly; ex-wives and ex-husbands vent venom; new partners give full rein to their jealous rages; and everyone throws insults around in a no-holds-barred fashion. Nothing is private. Nothing is sacred. And nothing is off-limits.

A couple of weeks ago, we watched agog as French politics descended into soap-opera territory via Twitter. President Francois Hollande looked on helplessly as his current partner, the journalist Valerie Trierweiler targeted his former partner (and mother of his four children), Segolene Royal, in a vicious tweet that hit Royal just where it hurt the most.

Royal, standing for election to a parliamentary seat, was being opposed by a dissident from her own Socialist party. So her former partner and now President of the Republic, Francois Hollande, sent out a message of support to Royal to bolster her chances at the polls (after all, she had done her best to support his presidential campaign). That was enough to make his current partner (and now the Premier Dame of France), Trierweiler, see red. She allegedly called up Hollande to remonstrate and then said chillingly, “Now you will see what I am capable of.”

And thus went out the now-infamous tweet, motivated by what insiders called Trierweiler’s ‘blind jealousy’. In it, she wished good look and ‘courage’ to Royal’s opponent in the poll. All of France was appalled, the French Prime Minister publicly rebuked Trierweiler and asked that she be more ‘discreet’ and ‘know her place’. And Royal announced sadly, at an election rally, that she felt ‘wounded’ by the tweet and that she deserved respect as a woman, a politician, and a mother.

But the damage was done. When the votes were counted, Royal had lost the seat, and with it the chances of becoming President of the National Assembly, the third-highest post in the country’s political structure. A bitter Royal quoted Victor Hugo to say that “Traitors always pay for their treachery in the end” and her four children, for good measure, stopped speaking to their father’s current partner.

So what started out as a storm in a T-cup ended up taking down the reputations of all the protagonists in the drama. Valerie was exposed as an insecure, vindictive woman who could not control her insane jealousy of her partner’s former lover. Hollande was shown up as a man who could not manage the women in his life (so, how on earth would he manage France, ran the sub-text). And as for poor Royal, her political career imploded in the aftermath of Twittergate and looks extremely unlikely to revive any time soon.

But while nobody in their right minds can condone Trierweiler’s scorched-earth policy on Twitter, there are some political spouses who have gained from their tweet-wars. Most famously, there was Anne Romney who went on Twitter to take on political commentator, Hilary Rosen, who said in a debate on CNN that Mrs Romney “had never worked a day in her life”. Anne Romney was quick to retort, “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work”. Her tweet got her the support of every stay-at-home mom, and many other women besides.

Of late, though, Twitter wars have tended to be increasingly undignified, even downright tawdry at times. Take the current battle royale raging between British multi-millionaire Ben Goldsmith (son of Jimmy and Annabel Goldsmith and brother to Jemima Khan) and his estranged wife, Kate, a Rothschild heiress. Ben called his wife’s behaviour ‘appalling’ on Twitter (because she had called the police on him) while she responded with a series of tweets saying that there were two sides to every break-up. Meanwhile, Kate’s alleged lover, the rapper Jay Electronica (yes, really!) put in his two-bit worth by tweeting #LoveIsOnTheWay. Yeah, real classy, this lot.

In India, too, we have had our share of Twitter wars. The most famous was the one waged by Lalit Modi against Shashi Tharoor (about the now-defunct Kochi franchise of the IPL) which resulted in Tharoor losing his job as minister and being consigned to political wilderness while Modi lost control of the IPL and was banished from the Indian cricketing scene to languish in exile (in London, though, so it can’t be all that bad).

More recently, we saw Karan Johar take on Priyanka Chopra for a story she did or did not (depending on whom you believe) plant about how some star wives and certain directors who were close to them were giving her a bad time. A livid Johar tweeted about how some people were ‘lame and spineless’ and needed ‘to wake up and smell the koffee’ and not ‘mess with goodness’. Of course, he did not mention Priyanka by name, but the inference was clear – and Twitter-sphere was abuzz in a matter of seconds.

So, what do you think? Does Bicker work better than Twitter? Or do you have a better idea? All suggestions welcome at my Twitter handle (given below). And may the best name win.

The claws are out

There’s never been much love lost between Hindi film heroines; but what’s with all the recent public sniping?

Older readers will probably remember a more innocent time when film magazines carried reverential articles about the leading stars of the day, when those who were in a relationship were described as ‘very good friends’, and every heroine felt compelled to express her utmost respect for her female colleagues even though what she really wanted was to claw their eyes out.

Well, guess what? That’s exactly what the ladies are doing these days – albeit metaphorically, for the time being at least. For now, their weapon of choice is their tongue and boy, do they hand out a lashing with a rare relish!

Nor are their frank opinions expressed within the privacy of their own drawing rooms. Au contraire, they are aired on their TV channels of choice as they act all naughty and playful on the talk show of the day. The barbs are dressed up with giggles and chuckles but they are sharp and well-directed for all that. And they are trading them as if there is no tomorrow.

Playing a starring role in these cat fights is Deepika Padukone, ex-girlfriend of Ranbir Kapoor and current squeeze of Siddharth (son of Vijay) Mallya. Asked what product her former boyfriend should endorse, Deepika was quick to respond. “Condoms!” she replied, with perfect aplomb. Questioned about Katrina Kaif – with whom Ranbir is said to be ‘very good friends’ (see above) – she said she would like to see her passport. Apparently, this was a reference to the rumour that there is some dispute about Katrina’s nationality and thus, her work status in India. (And no, I hadn’t a clue about this either.)

But Deepika is just the first among equals in this bitching fest, for want of a more polite term. Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, who began as good friends (or so they claimed at the time) now never tire of sniping at one another. Evidently, it’s all down to the fact that Priyanka began dating Shahid after Kareena dumped him for Saif Ali Khan. Priyanka and Shahid are apparently no longer together (do try and keep up!) but the ladies are still sniping away at each other.

Kareena was first off the block, asking Priyanka where she had gotten her accent from. Priyanka, who has been educated abroad, retorted with a tart: “The same place her boyfriend got his”. Then Priyanka was asked that if she could steal something off the computer of a long list of people (including Senior Bachchan and other Hindi film stalwarts) what would she steal? When it came to Kareena, Priyanka asked with faux-innocence: “Does she even have a computer?”

Oooh, you could just see the (Hermes, of course) handbags being drawn at dawn.

For some reason, most of this sniping and bitching happens on Karan Johar’s talk show. Suddenly in the midst of a somewhat happy-clappy atmosphere where everyone is laughing and teasing one another, you get a zinger like the ones quoted above. And above the sound of a million gasps across the nation you can hear Karan chuckle happily as he thinks of the headlines this little one-liner will elicit for the next few weeks.

Okay, so can I understand why Johar is happy for the occasional barb to be levelled across the parapet of the Koffee with Karan (honestly, what is with all this ‘K’ stuff? Doesn’t anyone know how to spell any longer?) show because that can only be good for his ratings. The more outrageous the stars get on the show, the more people are likely to tune in to get their weekly fix of cheap thrills.

But why do the stars fall in line so readily? Why are they so willing to say unkind things about one another on national television? Why are they so ready to be flip and bitchy about their colleagues? Why do they get so darn nasty with so little provocation?

Okay, Karan does tend to needle them a bit. But then, that’s his job as an anchor, to stir things up, to push the envelope, to make people say things that they otherwise would not. After all, his brief is to make the show as interesting as he possibly can. And quips like these go down swimmingly with the audience at home.

But my question is this: why do the stars fall for it? Why is it that in episode after episode, they all stumble into the same trap of slagging off their colleagues?

Is it that they are so comfortable with Karan – with whom all of them have done a movie or two and, no doubt, partied late into the night for good measure – that they forget that there is an actual audience out there watching and listening? Do they get conned into feeling that they are just among friends, joshing and joking, and that nothing they say will be taken seriously?

There may well be something to that because once the shock-horror reactions start pouring in, all the stars express outrage that what they said in good humour is being taken amiss. But, if you ask me, all this public sniping just makes me long for the good old days when stars concentrated on their pancake rather than their put-downs.

Call me quaint (and I’m sure you will) but I still prefer old-fashioned good manners over this new-fangled bitchiness.