How our relationship with Aishwarya Rai changed

THERE’S an Instagram trend for the month of May, where the name of the month is being used as a verb to seek manifestations. “May I travel this year”. “May I make pots of money”. “May I lose 10 kilos”. It’s so silly I’m writing it off to this cruel humidity. So I say “May it rain soon”.

But Mays are the most fashionable of all months. May starts with the ultimate fashion show of all, the Met Gala, a giant fundraiser in New York City that supports the Metropolitan Museum’s costume gallery. It remains among the greatest examples of a media company’s hit IP. May ends with the Festival de Cannes in the south of France, that has popularised its red carpet celebrity fashion so much that many say it overrides the festival. Cannes has its massive red rug trail down to almost half the Croisette avenue of the tiny seaside town where the festival takes place every year. Perhaps this is the way of the chief sponsor, L’Oreal, to ensure the focus is on glamour and glamorous hair-styles. But it has ended up being the biggest place to show up and get photographed. Data analytics firm Launchmetrics has measured the Media Impact Value (MIV) at Cannes film festival to be at a staggering US $1.1 billion.

The Cannes film festival (and its red carpet) has always belonged to Aishwarya Rai. She first arrived here with Shah Rukh Khan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali to promote ‘Devdas’ wearing a yellow Neeta Lulla sari, that was so ghastly we now call it “iconic” (but we call everything iconic these days). Then picked up by chief sponsor L’Oreal as their global ambassador, Aishwarya has been an annual visitor at Cannes, sometimes looking like the proverbial million dollars, sometimes mocked for looking like a million pounds (in weights).

Let’s face it, India loves Cannes because of our relationship with Aishwarya Rai (now Bachchan). She is the fair-skinned, light-eyed Euro-Brahmin beauty we fell in love with in the early 1990s. She was a top model and then a Miss India and Miss World. She could have been a forgotten model, but it was her steely determination to continue to play the game. She became an actor, like so many other beauty queens before and after her, but her immense talent and inherent professionalism turned her into a major movie star.

Then gave it up for a while when she married Abhishek Bachchan. She made fewer films, and preferred playing homemaker instead. She famously refused a lead role opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Farah Khan’s ‘Happy New Year’ because her husband Abhishek Bachchan had a smaller role. She tried her hand at some international projects, until she became a mum.  She has made five films in 15 years since her daughter Aaradhya was born, among which are Karan Johar’s ‘Ae Dil Hain Mushkil’ and Mani Ratnam’s blockbuster ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ I and II.

We barely see Aishwarya, except when she wants us to. She has maintained her starry snob value as her only professional commitments remain at Cannes, where she makes heads turn in gorgeous couture gowns. Like most of us, and unlike the movie stars today, she appears to be struggling with her weight. Her marriage has been fraught with rumours of fissures too, but the couple seems to have worked past them. Not a word from her ever, in keeping with the golden rule of celebrity: never complain, never explain.

This year at Cannes, there’s a new confidence about Aishwarya. Her wardrobe has been stunning after a long time – a gorgeous blue gown by Amit Aggarwal, a baby pink gown by Sophie Couture, an absolutely stunning tux with feathers by Chinese designer Cheney Chan, and a nude gown by Australian designer Fjolla Nila – thanks to her fabulous new stylist Mohit Rai. 

She remains the same size, but the comments are kinder. For one, we are genuinely glad to see an A-list celebrity at the circus that the Cannes red carpet has become. But more than anything, here’s a woman showing up for herself. Like too many of us, here’s a woman who has struggled to maintain a work-life balance, whose trials and tribulations we have echoed without her saying a word.

Here is Aishwarya Rai – super star, beauty queen, legendary actor, golden girl, dipped in pixie dust – showing up for all of us.