I was reading
a blog and came across the line ‘some place where I party with my friends and
let my hair down’ and I was like wow… partying with no pressure to dress up,
sounds like fun. Isn’t it? Fun is what parties are meant for, but then where
did we lose it. No I haven’t really lost it completely yet, ‘coz of my sane
company from college where no one is bothered or interested in what you are
wearing, and whether you have right pair of footwear to go with it, jewelry is
hardly noticed and no one has any knowledge and interest in latest trends and only
make-up is ear to ear smile, sorry smile doesn’t really fits in a college gang,
so it’s laughter riots and insane jokes, which surely keeps us all sane (Not
sure about our better halves and neighbors though J ).
Ok why does
it really bothers me so much? Do I hate dressing up? No I love when other
people do and I compliment them. But for me, it depends on my mood, occasion
and for sure time I have in my hand. Also do I have washed and ironed clothes in
my cupboard.
Once I was
having a feeling very low and one my friend was throwing a dinner party which I
denied with an honest reason that I am in no mood. What she told me I still
remember clearly, she said you can dress up and that will cheer you up. And it
surely helps at most times. But again that was not an era of fancy restaurants,
it was a dinner with a gang, and only thing we may inquire about the place will
be whether they serve Punjabi food and we will be in a good mood even after the
bill is paid. We didn’t bother about the ambience and they won’t bother if we
appear in chappals.
But just as
we grew older and wiser and richer (maybe), things changed. Once we visited
some fancy club. We were denied an entry, as one of us thought kolhapuri
chappals will make him stand out, and yes it did, we all stood out literally.
No it didn’t spoil the party, we went to a place where they allowed us, cracked
all the possible poor jokes on kolhapuri chappals and laughed our heart out and
thankfully were not thrown out again.
Things are
pretty different now. Somehow the lifestyle which was for celebrities and it
was fun to read about it in magazines, have become part of our life too. So
dressing up has gone to the next level. I mean for long I worked in same office
and was sometimes told to sober down on tone. But now I hear the talk about how
power dressing is important. Pretty difficult to do once you have worked all night
on dressing up your presentation too. I really wish more companies adopt Steve
Jobs way of dressing up and simple text presentations in corporate world, will
spare some time for real innovations.
For Indian
girls (let’s avoid saying ladies) it’s pretty stressful. I mean you have to
have all the western clothes and with right footwear for the weekend parties
with friends. There are different attires for movie dates and mall visits, for
weddings, kid’s birthday parties. I just hope there is no dress code yet for
vising the grocery shop and vegetable vendors. Then you have to turn into desi avatar for any occasion on in-laws
side, so that you look like well-mannered daughter-in-law (Sundar susheel bahu), but be very careful here, you might meet someone
of your generation in same party and you should not look like an aunty, so go
and take up the challenge of choosing that dress and make up nowJ.
The thing I
fear most is when I have to throw a birthday party for my kid. I mean you have
to first think of a theme, then think of a kids menu. When I was a kid, it was
just called food, and it was for all generation, may be subset with less spice
was served to kids. And kids were asked to sit down at a place and told to eat
quietly. Wow, those were the days, not now. You clean up the whole place, I
mean dress up the place first. Dress up your whole family, may be in color
coordinated way (yes if u want extra compliments). Pray to God that your kid
don’t feed anything to his new dress as you all may need to change again to
keep up with theme. Prepare 10-15 food items but make sure your kitchen looks
like you have never used it. Then dress up the dining table, use right crockery,
cutlery, arrange food in a way that it looks like a piece of art, your guest
must feel like clicking the snaps, sorry make it a selfie. And last but not the
least, yes your salad also need to be dressed up.
