I was at this wedding reception recently when it occurred to me that I was swamped by a huge number of people around me who were wearing extremely visible letters. [break]
Clearly, the men that had a big ‘H’ on their jackets, a horseshoe logo upside down on their wrists and the ladies with humongous jewelry barely hanging from their ears. Turns out they were only signaling their newfound status with purchases of Hilfiger, Omega watches and Riddhi Siddhi jewelry.
A week later, I find myself dashing off to another wedding again. This time, it’s at this overtly expensive five-star hotel where a cousin has organized a lavish cocktail dinner on the occasion of his wedding. Apparently, a lot of people are there to wish the new couple a blissful married life and I’m just in time to hear them speak to each other.
When I get bored of the conversation and head to the hotel’s poolside for a smoke, two of my school friends turn me around and head to where the bar is. Everything worth seeing at the pool area has been torn apart by the authorities that were expanding the road, they say. Never one to accept another’s word, I push my way out of the lobby and into the pool area. It turns out they’re right.
Almost everything has been rudely taken away, except for a few paintings still hanging in the lobby.
There’s a painting that I look at closely and then at the number of zeroes that denotes its value. I figure it’s the right time to start selling paintings, or even better, begin painting one with the numerous invitations for joining art classes I receive on facebook these days; but most certainly not buying them.
Discussions swerve to the Ducati that has taken the market by storm. Fact check: the total number of Ducati motorcycles sold in Kathmandu alone almost matches the numbers sold in India. Apparently, I hear it’s the most luxurious two-wheeler money can buy.
While there’s little doubt that the rich who’ve had money for sometime will prefer understated to flashy; given the rate at which the fashion graph seems to be growing two-folds, there’ll always be a market for bling, as is evident by the ridiculously large ugly looking Hummer on the narrow streets of Thamel on a busy Friday evening.
Then again, the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. Otherwise, if Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
The writer is a banker by profession. He enjoys single malts and other good things in life.
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