16 Jun 2008

The power of singledom

Crisis. Had a film award ceremony to attend and no date. Let’s not pretend these events are about the awards. Anyone who doubts me, please ask Ashutosh Gowarikar, who was rightly raging about it from the podium (but let’s not get into that). I guarantee you that no one will recall who won best background score as easily as who Priyanka sat next to and what Ash was wearing. The scrutiny on the red carpet is worse than immigration at JFK. The width of your heel, the colour of your nail polish and every strand of stray hair will be dissected and torn apart. Unless of course you sashay in with a date.

Somehow, I felt if I had a man on my arm, it would take the edge off the new Souzie Wong haircut I was trying to pull off. The sharks would be on my eye candy and not on me. The truth is there is an unwritten diktat – if you’re with a man, you must be doing something right, after all someone approves enough to be with you. But woe upon woe, if you are single, then doesn’t matter how next season your haircut is, it’s not working for you – ‘you can’t even get a man, you poor thing!’. Excuse me, who made these hideous rules? More disgustingly, why was I – independent, bohemian, attitude reeking out of my pores – succumbing to it?

It took a long hard look at my single, sharp minded self in the mirror, to convince me that I was not diseased, nor an outcast for not having a man. I was going to outrageously flirt with myself and have a laugh with my friends. Squeezing my tush into a black satin off shoulder and unwalkable high heels, I summoned the powers of singledom and strutted down the red carpet alone, secretly mocking the envious wives and husbands, who looked at me with nostalgia and longing for the best days of their lives.