The week kicked off with the election results for five states that left most dumbfounded. The flavour of the counting day was definitely the state of West Bengal. This was definitely heightened by the Prime Minister’s well curated shots of savouring ‘Jhaal-Moori’ that led the modest Bihari and Bengali snack to become the nation’s most sought after snack. I loved the Memes that crackled the gawking and gaping reel watching generation. The television anchors took to the Bengal’s iconic ‘Laal-Paar’ saree (red-bordered sarees worn with red saankha and alta adorned feet) with a vengeance. Most made a mockery of it.
The Gawking and Gaping crowd hooked on reels are salivating on ‘Try-with-Me’ or ‘Dress-with-Me’ thirst-trap videos. Bosom flaunting buxom girls are running to the bank with navel gazing audience drooling over them in millions. Wonder who christened them as content creators/ influencers. It is lewd, crass and harbouring on pornography to lure in the jerking-off population. Surprised to see actors, models and god-knows-who all are click-baiting the nation.
As the election results got settled in, another national pastime – ‘celebrity watching’ sneaked into our feeds. It was the Met Gala 2026 themed on ‘Fashion is Art’. Since Nita Ambani joined the Metropolitan Museum as its primary patron, select coterie from India has been gracing the famous red-carpet (it was off-white this time). So we saw Isha Ambani in a Gaurav Gupta saree with wind-beneath her pallu, Karan Johar in Manish Malhotra cape with Raja Ravi Verma art which can be framed and mounted on the wall as art, Manish Malhotra in a self designed bandhgala and cape with miniature figurines, Ananya Birla in a Subodh Gupta ‘bartan’ mask and a ballgown, Pacho and Gauravi Kumari in Prabal Gurung, Sudha Reddy in Manish Malhotra and few more. Natasha Poonawala got the theme best. Rest took the word ‘Art’ a bit too literally.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez were the honorary co-chairs and major sponsor for the 2026 Met Gala triggering significant backlash, calls for boycott and protests. Lauren Sanchez twirled on the Red Carpet but Jeff Bezos gave it a skip. By the way, the annual Met Gala is a fund-raiser. Hope the larger philanthropic ideals around the event isn’t getting diluted with nouveau riche shelling out $100,000 dollars to grace the carpet and be captured in frames for posterity.
