It’s that point of the 12 months once more. Come May, and India will get an opportunity to point out the world it Cannes do it.

Season 2023 on the French Riviera could carry extra weight than the mere crimson carpet wait.

The post-Oscars outing lends extra weight to the Indian Pavilion.

With the most recent Academy Award below her belt, Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga and Co deliver to the Cannes pret parade an upped substance quotient, whereas the remainder of the Indian contingent, as regular, is generally about model quotient.

With 4 Indian movies additionally making it to the fest in 2023, Cannes could now filter the Bollywood presence via a altering lens. A lens tinted with extra substance, not mere model.

As for the model quotient, the Cannes movie pageant opening noticed, aside from the staple Aishwarya to Urvashi, Bollywood’s up-and-coming actor Sara Ali Khan making her debut.

That her Indian twist — the crystal-and-pearl lehenga look courtesy designers Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla — did not go down too nicely with the style police confirmed that Indianness must put its greatest foot ahead, however with out it trying like an over- Decorated Christmas tree.

One troll summed up Sara’s overexposed and overdone Indianness-gone-wrong thus, “Cannes gayi hai ya shaadi pe?”

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s ghastly ‘n’ giantly silver-hooded look amplified India’s oops and downs. What with the following meme fest calling her “chicken shawarma lag rahi hai”.

Cannes 2023 thus appears to be like extra about overdressing or getting a dressing from the style police.

Overdressed to Underdressed

In stark distinction, the month of May additionally brings again reminiscences of a sure under-dressing.

The month of May, in these golden days of girlhood passed by, was synonymous with “pettis” and “pettis” (cartons) arriving from household orchards. They signaled the grand arrival of the King of Fruits. The Mango.

Those days of yore have been synonymous not simply with mangoes galore. They spelled a sure ritual that unfolded, layer by layer, as did the “pettis”.

The May ritual unveiled considerably thus. Tubs loaded with the luscious fruit have been put outdoors within the shade below the massive mango bushes hemming the house courtyard. Into these tubs have been tossed mammoth slabs of ice to relax the mangoes.

Then, our dad and mom parked us on these child chairs in a circle across the tubs filled with this primary “mehmaaan” of May. A much-awaited “mehmaan” for whom the style buds can not help however croon, “Tu cheez badi hai mast mast”.

The unwrapping of the “pettis” noticed us children dancing round to dig into its contents, a efficiency that maybe bore poetic resemblance to a precursor of Naatu Naatu.

But earlier than we children may launch off on our gorging spree, there popped up a parental diktat.

The logic behind it was sensible and easy. Those weren’t days of an iconic “Lalita ji” driving house the stain-conquering virtues of Surf with a “kharidari mein samajhdari” catchphrase for parental consumption. Nor have been these instances of an Ariel occurring an promoting overdrive that promised to magically banish “ziddi daag”.

It was thus this shedding battle with “ziddi daag” that ruled the parental diktat defining childhood’s under-dressing, oops undressing, narrative.

“Off with your frocks!” got here the command.

The curious case of attacking the King of Fruits, defrock inventory and barrel.

chetnakeer@yahoo.com