Of dressing gowns and 'Make in India'

An advertisement for a man's dressing gown "of the finest, worsted spun cashmere… fully lined in the softest Italian silk" priced at Rs 2.31 lakh should assure US President Barack Obama that far from being a rich country of poor people, India is a poor country of rich people. It may have lost the world's richest man in the Nizam of Hyderabad but the 27-storey Antilia is the world's most expensive home.

Obama's predecessor recognised a taste for wealth as India's dark secret. Money being an embarrassment, rich Indians prefer to salt it away in distant hideaways. Ostentatious poverty salves conscience, placates the gods, impresses others and deceives the taxman. But noting the hankering for air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines with "younger Indians acquiring a taste for pizzas", George W Bush promised to promote India's nuclear aspirations if Indians bought American brands of these goods even if they were made in China.
 

Obama is arriving hard on the heels of a land Ordinance whose purpose, Medha Patkar suspects, is to build not factories but shopping malls. It's part of a commerce-driven syndrome that reduces schools to cut-price crammers and turns clubs into bars peddling premium brands at a discount. Nothing has value but everything has a price. A small phial of cream that leaves skin "supple and shiny" without pretending to satisfy the craze for whitening costs Rs 41,000. A Chennai hotel that charges Rs 50,000 per head for brunch "complemented by rare vintage champagnes" says, "Yes, there are takers".

Even "The Beast", Obama's bomb and bullet defying fortress on wheels, may receive a regally withering look from Rolls, which has "made a roaring comeback in India with its new tech-driven, super-luxe limos". The piece de resistance is a diamond-studded gold champagne cooler ("a synergy of precious metals and stones") for Rs 55.45 crore. The American magazine Millionaire changed its title when millionaires became a dime a dozen; they must be equally thick on the ground of India if not Bharat.

Affluenza, the insatiable desire for more, has made "shop till you drop" the national mantra. The dressing gown seller has his finger on the social pulse of this thrusting arriviste society. All clothes are hierarchical; but if shirts and pants whisper a class statement, dressing gowns scream it without any of the false modesty that decrees that while suits must be new they must look old. Dressing gowns also disregard restrictions like lace being confined only to shoes and men having to sport white at cuff and collar to emphasise the disconnect with manual labour. Dressing gowns can be as flamboyant as fancy takes without offending propriety.

My favourite vivid black and orange paisley pattern once intrigued a Dhaka airport customs official. He assumed I had a woman lurking somewhere and gave me a strange look when I said it was mine to wear in private. Obviously, he hadn't seen any of those old-school Bengali plays and films whose male leads were always draped in a dressing gown, a stereotyping that spared females although many women went about in caftans. If the man was ultra-sophisticated, he clutched a pipe in one hand. If depraved, his other hand held a glass of amber liquid.

Pipe and tumbler were accessories. The dressing gown epitomised sybaritic decadence. My dictionary defines it as "a full robe worn before dressing or for lounging." If its elegance is only an hors d'oeuvre, think of how sartorially sumptuous the main course should be, although a Delhi editor once misunderstood the "black tie" injunction on a gilt-edged card and appeared at a banquet in the long black tie worn only at funerals. The second definition exalts what the hoi polloi call "timepass" into the serious art of luxurious leisure.

Given the spending and sophistication a dressing gown symbolises, Obama must look hard for goodies to tempt Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is genetically a shrewd bargainer unlike his Sikh predecessor. Nuclear energy, climate change and security won't allow the visit to be acclaimed as an instant triumph. Patents can provoke friction. Economic cooperation means more shopping malls. But India is changing. Obama's State of the Union address boasted it's up to the Americans "to choose who (they) want to be". Indians have already chosen. Most want to be rapacious consumers. That's how we imagine Americans even if the real McCoy is an austere muscle-bound jogger addicted to health foods, yoga and meditation.

Meanwhile, the orders for the Rs 2.31-lakh dressing gown will take four to six weeks to execute as it patriotically fulfils Modi's 'Make in India' commitment.