Alpana Parida: An Indian brand for men – Maanyavar

By Alpana Parida

The brand that had become synonymous with wedding fashion for groom has been rightfully championing Indian wear across occasions. A few years ago – the brand played out the quintessential India male fantasy of taking over the sedate wedding with a Caucasian girl and her family by getting all to dance to the bhangra. While it captured the new confidence and aspirations of an emerging India, there was not much to set the brand apart from similar ads across categories – whether of a man choosing to buy a hotel where his dadaji worked, or rejecting an international job in favour of staying in India. A little over the top, the ads were clearly make-believe fantasy, a little brash and could not be classified as progressive.

The recent advertising by the brand brilliantly catches the pulse of the progressive Indian man who has lately been reviled and beleaguered for not sharing the load.  Progressive women are far more ubiquitous. The latest Virat Kohli commercial where he talks of sharing wedding costs or another where the son chooses an Indian kurta pajama for his graduation at Oxford identify a new protagonist rarely seen in Indian advertising. There have been previous instances of the Tanishq man who picks up his wife’s daughter during the ‘pheras’ of his second marriage or the Raymond man understanding his kids or mother. Or even a more recent Ariel commercial of a father apologising to his daughter about not being a good role model to her and now changing by sharing the load. But these have been rare – and have largely been about empowering women.

The Maanyavar commercials differ because these men are more real. Rather than empowering another and revealing their value systems through that, these are more direct windows into the emerging Indian man’s soul. In earlier times, a progressive man would have asked for an austere wedding to spare the girl’s family any expense, and have further said no dowry. This ad resonates with current times, with talk of a large wedding with an abundance of food and celebrations befitting the status of the two families. There is no paring down here – simply a no-nonsense intent of sharing costs stated clearly.

In the other ad, the mother who is asking the son to wear a suit to his graduation is converted when he confronts her in Indian attire with a ‘jaisa desh vaisa bhesh” logic. There is a new Indian confidence here, not looking to beat others at their own game like the Rajnigandha man buying a European hotel. Rather, this is a quiet assertion of identity, of owning ones space on world stage.

As women protagonists have changed significantly in popular culture.  The residual discourse of the hapless women  to empowered women who needed men to give them the space, belief and strength to come into their own, the new women have simply gone ahead with what they want or believe in. They no longer need to be empowered, they are powered themselves. The portrayal of men is in a state of flux right now with bikes and deos harking back to a time of male machismo on the one hand and other ads that call out their hypocritical values, these ads come as a fresh insight into the emerging Indian man. It will take more than a few ads to make Indian men’s wear relevant beyond weddings – but the brand is certainly walking down the right path.