In my early days in journalism, I reported quite a bit on celebrity events, fashion and stuff like that. My Mother would say sadly, “When are you going to stop writing about people swinging from chandeliers and do some serious work?”. This was in the 1980s, so long before Sia was probably born, let alone singing about chandeliers. Do not get fooled into thinking I know anything at all about current musical trends, other than the names of a few singers.
The difference between writing about the world of glamour and rich people then and now is stark, though. Somehow in those days, we were irreverent and often downright nasty. The incomparable Stardust was so wicked, that sometimes my Mother would not let me read it. No one was so great that they could not be taken down a peg or two. Amitabh Bachchan refused to speak to the film media because of their nastiness! Did they care and go crawling to him? No chance! Anyone old enough may remember the saga of Dharmendra and Devyani Chaubal!
Did I make mistakes, go too far? All the while. Did I give in? Ha ha! I destroyed a happy professional camaraderie with a top fashion designer because I criticised him on a radio show. I upset a well-known artist because she went back on a quote she had given me on the uselessness of art critics. If your editor supported you because they believed you over the “celebrity”, well and good. If not, you learnt some lesson or the other and moved on. For the most part, people understood. If they didn’t, too bad.
We didn’t at the time dress up to go to fashion shows – who could anyway on the salary of a print journalist? I once sent a reporter dressed in jeans to an event where the invite specifically said “no jeans”. Who was anyone to tell us how to dress, as observers? We kept that distance between them, the people we interviewed and us, the print media.
With economic liberalisation, we changed in many ways and one of them was the corporatization of both the media and the glamour world. No access to anyone without going through a massive phalanx of managers and PR people. Salaries increased. Fashion and style magazines erupted. Journalists who worked for them were expected to dress like the people they interviewed. Subsequent generations accepted this as normal, because they knew no other way of working. To be a journalist in the glamour world was to be a PR agent of another sort. Only praise was acceptable, or face the consequences.
This trip down memory lane is largely because of the Big Wedding which has dominated some media space, as a change from the usual politics. I remember a massive wedding from the 1980s. We were still a quasi-socialist country in those days. Extravaganzas and vulgarity were frowned upon. So when one of the richest Indians in the world decided to get their daughter married in Bombay, there was a lot of excitement. And secrecy. Every five-star hotel in the city was booked. Planes were chartered from London to Bombay and from a few other places as well. The wedding was for some reason in Juhu, although life in those days for the rich and very rich was largely contained to South Bombay. Film stars may have lived beyond South Bombay, but remember in those days only tourists got excited about seeing a film star. No Bombaywallah would stoop that low.
My editor at the time was a high flier, who was invited to the big day, full of expectation of a grand celebration. The next day in office she could not contain her laughter. The bride was decked in diamonds from head to foot she said. But guests were only served a bowl of ice-cream and a glass of Thums Up. The hosts said that they were against ostentation and pomp!
Soon after that, some jeweller booked Wankhede Stadium for a wedding. Caparisoned elephants were part of the wedding parade. Bombay was outraged and shocked at such gaudiness and temerity.
How things have changed!
So enjoy all the hoopla of the Big Wedding happening in Bombay after all the hi jinks in Jamnagar and the PR debacle of the cruise ship in Portofino. Enjoy the photos of celebrities, Indian and foreign, whether you’ve heard of them or not. Do not be an old person and grumble that one pop star performed in a torn dress at the Pre Wedding Tamasha while another appeared in publicity photos in his kachcha-banyan.
Gasp at the decorative lights and traffic jams strewn across the city. The designer clothes and over-the-top jewellery, the glitz and glam, the big names who attended and who didn’t.
And spare a thought for us, who once upon a time would have given you an honest, if a bit sarcastic and bitchy, account of what actually went on!
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.