Working till late at night - make that early morning - in a hotel in Mumbai had proved to be an eye-opener. The sea-facing property was a favourite with Bollywood's brightest, and at night they poured in en-masse in the hope of catching some director's eye. Dandy young men in mustard yellow skinnies and Ts that showed cleavage and biceps were like clones of one another, though they probably owed the cleft on their chins and the dimples on their cheeks to surgery rather than nature. They dawdled narcissistically, appearing the tiniest bit bored of their own beauty, pouting a mite in sullen resignation at the lack of recognition of their worth. If they had talent, they hid it well, striking careless poses like gadflies in an operatic ensemble.
Their female counterparts were livelier, and their default dressing mode was the "frock" as my wife promptly labelled their trailing gowns. Every woman, it seemed, was decolletaged in a dress, no matter the time of night or day, irrespective of age or size. Matronly aunties wore gowns with armour at the neck; their svelte counterparts wore them with thigh-high slits. They sported them for breakfast and for dinner. They came in high heels but left barefeet, tired of strutting the imaginary red carpet and preferring to scoop up the trailing gown as they waited to get into a car.
Mummyjis and bhabhijis, mems and behns, they all wore them. Brides togged up in them for their sangeet, decorously taking a mantle to please their conservative in-laws, but mothers-in-law appeared in them, too, while sisters-in-law teamed them with bridal bangles from wrist to elbow. Lunching ladies wore them like middle-class housewives wear housecoats. They wore them to the coffee shop and the bar. Entire baraats wore them instead of the sari. They were emblazoned and embellished, or simple and basic. Some were sexy while others were frumpy, though that was not so much the dress's fault as the dresser's. Some were off shoulder, others came with full sleeves; some had a defined silhouette, others voluminous enough to be robes.
Watching them traverse the grand staircase of the hotel without once taking a spill - I was told these gowned divas had taken lessons on walking without tripping on their hems - one had to wonder why they thought the garment necessary to wear to the spa or the disc. They went for hair appointments in couture gowns and for massages as well. It twinned as their bathrobe for the poolside and their choice for a flight. They wore black for breakfast, and black at night; some even turned up at the swimming pool in a gown and trainers, as though it were mandatory to run on the beach in preparation for a walk on the ramp.
"But they are on the ramp, love," gushed a Bollywood designer I checked with, "everyone's on display all the time." It's true that they seemed to spend a lot of time styling themselves for selfies. Friends clicked their girlfriends; daughters photographed their mothers, who returned the compliment. They primped and posed. But despite its overwhelming presence, I refused to believe it was the go-to dress till my daughter called to give me the number for a high-street fashion store from where I was to take delivery of clothes she'd ordered from some up-and-coming designer. "Really," I grumbled, "aren't there tailors any more in Delhi?" "There are," confided my daughter, "but they don't do gowns like the Mumbai designers do them."
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