Male vanity, especially when shown by men who are no longer in the first flush of their youth is painful to behold. Imagine titans of industry, steely-jawed executives, ear-ringed DJ’s and the odd, ahem journo, all jockeying for position on a tiny ramp, prior to strutting their wares before a baying, frenzied crowd of some 200 women: totally weird. But, let’s start at the very beginning, defined by the quintessential governess, Julie Andrews, “as a very good place to start.” Many moons ago, Nirmal and Sarita Mandoth decided to have a Ladies Night at Urban Edge. Women from the ages of seventeen to seventy, freed temporarily from the restraint of being good wives, mothers and daughters, were invited to kick up their heels and have fun in a bawdy, anything-goes ambience. The only men present were bartenders, hunky beefcakes (authentic passenger statement) and a couple of DJ’s.
Given the current puritanical wave sweeping the nation, it seems hard to believe we were once so chilled out and thank heaven for the recent landmark judgment on privacy by the Supreme Court. Now websites like Girliyappa featuring “bold women” who wolf –whistle, grope and lewdly suggest can do their own thing without being subject to the diktat of “decent” cultural conditioning, but I digress. The refined element on the organizing committee decided that a few good men drawn from the world of business, art and journalism, should sashay down the ramp in the latest designerwear to the tune of Lennon’s “I’m a Loser”. Just kidding , the musical choice was “Hey Big Spender.”
Ten men were chosen and if one is permitted to abuse the convention of modesty, yours truly was one among, to paraphrase Bo Derek, that ‘perfect ten.’ Call me shallow, but I was at that foolish stage where I actually felt fashion mattered. After making the usual pseudo, “Gosh, you can’t be serious, not me,” protestations, I went to a studio for fittings and had a stylist study the contours of my cheekbones. I sucked my stomach in so hard when they were taking measurements that I nearly ruptured a blood vessel in my pathetic eagerness to belong in this narcissistic, toned environment. Since I’m in confessional mode, I may as well admit I spent the next couple of days standing in front of a full-length mirror in my jocks, imitating Sylvester; I’m talking Sly Stallone, not your weird cousin, Sylvester Sequeira from Spencer Road, who wears a toupee and says tree when he means three.
Segue to Urban Edge where as dusk fell and the moon rose in the sky, the gals kept streaming in and getting progressively likkered up. Meanwhile strapping young lads, clad in body paint and gossamer thin outfits, swaggered through the throng in their thongs, posing at odd intervals or cocking a hip, or whatever it is that beefcakes do. Blame it on Smirnoff or hormones, but after a while the ladies got a little restive. Casting demure or lascivious glances at a guy flexing his pecs or rippling his abs is a spectator sport with limited appeal; a bit like Baywatch. Touchy-feely is clearly not a male prerogative, which is why some bolder women grabbed a free feel.
The models protested feebly: more for form’s sake than out of any sense of outraged modesty. Men, contrary to old wives’ tales, cannot be raped; as any fule kno, this is anatomically impossible. Consequently the “chosen” were aghast when the organizers cancelled the show claiming that the crowd was “too wild”. Their protests that wild is my middle name fell on deaf ears; in fact I distinctly heard someone respond, “middle-aged”, which is tough to handle when one is thinning on top and getting fatter in the middle.
There was only one honorable option and they took it: rallying the troops they strode the ramp and plunged into the crowd. Unfortunately the DJ chose that moment to play the title track from, “The Full Monty”, and the ladies responded to its primal beat by tugging at their designerwear and their tattered shreds of dignity. To compound the problem, a certain underwear baron decided to stir things up by offering a prize to anyone who could guess what jocks they were wearing. “Jockey, Calida, edible...” screeched the women in a shrill crescendo, before one harpy decided there was only one way to find out. My ramp session is long over but I must admit that it left me with lasting insights into the model’s code of conduct…
Ajit Saldanha has a finger in the pie, and another on the political pulse. And when he writes, he cooks up a storm.
