Funerals are never easy. Even when they come disguised as Soirees. No amount of champagne and amuse bouches can dull the intensity of grief incurred by the ‘missing’ among us. Today we lament the passing of that enchanting creature central to any self-respecting Society shindig, the Socialite.
Lest I allow the bereavement to cloud my ability to be fair, it must be admitted that with the notable exception of a few, Socialites were always more about the Style than any Substance. But one can never overestimate the importance of Style, especially when faced with the drought caused by our current crop of Blah masquerading as Diva. They were by and large always consumed by the superficial but skin deep was at least beautiful. There was a certain gravitas about them. It came from within. A sense of entitlement that came from years of breeding and exposure and the effortless ease that came from their to the Manor Born status. They embraced it all from their chi chi crowd to their charitable causes with grace and elan.
Nobody can claim that any of them were Mother Teresas in the making but they brought a certain commitment and their cheque books to the charities they chose to adopt. That generosity is sorely missing today as me me me has drowned everything else in its cacophony. It is perhaps this lack of I that makes them so very needy no matter how much they possess. Because when I HAVE becomes your definition of I AM, then I becomes poor indeed. And this poverty is apparent wherever you go. You can smell it as strongly as the Chanel No 5 they wear. Women too impoverished to look beyond the gaping hole that stares them in the face every morning and seek the beauty that lies in giving.
Today, the superficial is far from super. It’s a homogenous mass of tweaked, tweezed, botoxed to stunned bewilderment, Stepfords, sans any sense of personality, individuality or Self. They wear all the right stuff, serve the de rigueur stuff from foie gras to 50-year-old malts, and yet manage to have the appeal of…cardboard.
Little wonder then that no sooner had the Diva become extinct that we saw the birth of a new breed of parasite... the image consultant. An entire brigade of jumped up ayahs/chamchis posing as best friends with styling and lifestyle management benefits guiding these poor deluded women into deeper depths of oblivion. The insecure make easy host(esses).
It is at times like this when one misses the Sunita Pitamber’s most and salutes the Parmeshwar Godrej’s. Divas are born not made. We can only pray for more like them.
