Since we had never before worn coordinated ensembles, I couldn’t help protesting, especially as the selection included white trousers, something I have always associated with PT classes in school. “Why,” I looked at the gabardine with some loathing, “am I wearing white?” “Because Karan Johar is going to be there,” my wife said, as if that explained everything. “Does he wear white trousers too?” I asked. “I don’t know, silly,” laughed my wife, “but my personal stylist insisted we wear these clothes, so will you get rid of the frown and go change, it’s getting late” — which was cheeky of her, considering she took another hour to get ready, in which time I had to entertain my mother-in-law with an extra round of whisky. “You’re wearing white pants,” my mother-in-law pointed out after her third drink. “Nothing wrong with your eyesight,” I complimented her. “Makes you look like a gigolo,” she guffawed, “not that you’re a spring chicken any more.”
“So tell me again,” I said to my wife in the car, “why are we wearing these absurd clothes?” “You stupid goose, you don’t know anything,” she chided good-naturedly, explaining that party co-host Karan Johar of Bollywood blockbusters fame was known for creating fashion-harmonised families on celluloid. “But what does that have to do with us?” I still didn’t get it — far from being a fashion-forward family, we appeared to be sartorially dysfunctional as a clan. “What an ass you are,” my wife could no longer hold on to her temper, “don’t you understand that when Bollywood directors come to a party, they’re always scouting for talent.” “Maybe,” I conceded, for there were always pretty young things at these parties — “but us?” “He can give us a role in his next film,” she said resolutely, “the modern mum-and-dad kinds, or when they need young aunts and uncles.”
Any views I might have had about a potential career in Bollywood were stymied for the time being when the concierge at the Aman hotel told us that we’d have to park our own car — they were short of valets, he muttered, “because nobody wants to be a driver any more,” a subject on which I might have contributed my own bitter memoirs had it not been for my wife who hurried me along in her impossibly high heels without once complaining as she usually does when she’s strapped into stilettos.
At the bar, my wife said, I could not have my usual tipple. Instead, we were poured identical apple and cinnamon Chivas cocktails, and drank in coordinated sips, so it was impossibly long before I could ask for a second round, this time of elder flower and Chivas with a twist of orchid petals (my wife ate hers, I discreetly spat out mine), but by now Karan Johar had come, shaken hands, been photographed, and gone in a shimmer of celebrity haze, so we didn’t need to be synchronised any more. Which is why my wife decided to stuff her shoes into her very large handbag and stand in her bare feet instead (I kept my shoes on), and the bartender poured me a scotch on the rocks and her a champagne, and when we were done, we tottered up to our car (by now the Aman had managed to get a handle on its valets, so we didn’t have to go looking for it in the parking lot, which would have been torture on my wife’s naked feet), and were on our way home when my daughter called. “Did you get a role in Karan Johar’s next movie?” she asked excitedly. “No,” said my wife, “and it’s all your father’s fault. Who ever heard of anyone wearing white pants to a party!”