LESSONS FROM THE FABULOUS LIVES OF BOLLYWOOD WIVES ON SOCIAL HIERARCHY, GOOD HAIR, NEEDING OUR PARENTS AND FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS (WOW, THAT’S A LOT)
The TV gods took a little longer than I expected to plop an international cast into the Real Housewives format, but Netflix did us a solid by casting not just housewives but a cabal of women associated with Indian showbiz, or Bollywood, in The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives.
I expected a fun and zany escapade to deliver me from Covid-ville, and I did get that. What I didn’t expect is that the show would be a veritable case study in hierarchy and social capital. Isabel Wilkerson’s master work, Caste, came right out and said it, so it’s hardly a secret that Indians are the OGs of societal hierarchy. In India, rankings of all kinds are a national obsession (#1 student, #1 child, #1 actor, #1 water heater—you get the idea), and much of that mindset still lives on in Indian people scattered across the globe.
Although we don’t really see it until the last couple of episodes, one of the themes of the show is a cringey obsequiousness toward Gauri Khan, wife of megastar Shah Rukh Khan and, according to everyone on the show, the ultimate Bollywood wife. Khan, who doesn’t stoop so low as to be an actual cast member herself, is apparently the glue who holds the gang together. In a build up to a party she is about to host, the ladies gush over how Gauri will look like a million bucks, how when she throws a party, she throws it in style, and how she is just the bee’s knees in every possible way.
In the final moments of the show, Gauri and her husband walk into their own party in super slo mo with a goofy, filmy, superhero soundtrack playing in the background. Later in the party, the ladies huddle to dish in a cozy parlor area, and they awkwardly shuffle around so that Gauri can be seated in a tufted armchair that resembles a throne. She happily takes the seat as her subjects fret and fuss over her fabulousness.
Gauri doesn’t say or do anything to convince the audience that she is deserving of all this adulation, so we can only conclude that homage is paid because of her high-wattage husband. That all the other wives who spend eight episodes cultivating the audience’s interest and empathy are suddenly relegated to ladies-in-waiting status next to Gauri is a bummer.
And yet, there is an interesting flip side to this tale of hierarchy. In the rawest of moments, the brash alpha of the group, Maheep Kapoor, shares that it has been hard for her and her husband to be the “unsuccessful” family in an extended family of outsize B-town successes. The producer or Andy Cohen of the show, Karan Johar, then piles on by saying that he has witnessed people treating her badly because of said unsuccessfulness and then offers a half-assed “success isn’t everything” platitude.
It is courageous and refreshing of Maheep to articulate what is obviously her Achilles’ Heel. It lends to a character arc of sorts for her. She is the most unlikable at the beginning—potty-mouthed, harsh and unrelenting, but then we can infer that she behaves this way to overcompensate for a feeling of worthlessness in an industry (Bollywood) within a culture (arriviste Indians) who value money and success or the appearance of such above all else. This admission is one of the most true and honest moments I have witnessed, be it in real life or on television.
There were a number of other things I loved about the show—
Their Hair—Each one of four wives is blessed with the long, lustrous, bountiful, ebony-ish locks that is the stock and trade of Urdu love songs (zulfon, which means beautiful tresses, is the word, and it gives me serious onomatopoeia vibes).
For middle aged women who have popped out a kid or two each, their hair looks good, damn good. This is what I imagine happens when someone gives you a weekly Ayurvedic champi (scalp massage) with warm oil infused with magical spices. I am happy to know that this practice works.
Their Parents—Many parents of long-running Housewives get to make cameos, particularly if they can take the wacky factor up a notch. In this franchise, the parents of Bhavana Pandey, the stand out of the show for her good sense and relatability, are featured a couple of times, but they are anything but wacky. There is one scene in particular that made my heart sing.
After returning from a confrontational lunch in which Seema comes after Bhavana for a series of travesties, Bhavana goes home to her light-filled loggia, changes into her house slippers and phones her mummy, the very picture of Panjabi loveyness, to share her feelings of confusion and hurt. Mummy immediately reminds her (in Hinglish) of the bigger picture—that the gang has been friends for years—and offers a wise apnay dil pe muth laga—don’t take it on your heart. How I love that phrase.
No matter how old we get, it still feels nice to be parented. We still need our moms, and we want them to know when to call us beta and comfort us with a feel-good Hindi phrase (there is, in fact, something particularly soothing about being consoled in your ancestral language). I found a sweet universality in that notion.
Their 25-Year Run—Unlike the women in the Housewives franchises who are brought together only for the camera, these particular ladies have a true 25-year history of friendship. The montage of photos taken at different stages of their lives that they offer in the ending sequence proves it.
Female friendships are complex all on their own. Add to that the layers of competitiveness in the movie business and the cultural constructs of Indian society. That they’ve held it together for 25 years becomes all the more a marvel.
Living in the diaspora, I have found forging meaningful adult relationships with other Indian women to be a challenge. There have always seemed to be two extremes—those that seek a bonafide auntie lifestyle in the vein of our mothers (large group, mostly superficial socializing) and those that have buried their Indianness in order to blend in. It’s been hard to find the middle ground.
Not only are the ladies friends but their children are good friends, and there appears to be loads of cross-generational synergy—that one hurt a bit on a personal level because I would have loved to have been part of a community of earnest Indian women with whom I shared a cultural shorthand who took a genuine interest in my children. It turns out that the hard work of preserving and passing on culture is best done as a group effort and is difficult to do in a vacuum. A village of aunties is not without its complications, but it has its place and value.
On the whole, the show did what it was supposed to—I felt invested in these ladies, as much as if I was a regular at their lunch dates at Ministry of Crab (you had me at the name!) in a glorious Mumbai art-deco building.
Xo-P