Party Talk
Buzzwords on the Circuit
Who isn’t familiar with buzz words on Mumbai’s social circuit? In a city where people pride themselves on being au courant and ahead of the curve and trends are even more contagious than the latest viral variant in the air, you only have to spend a couple of evenings out at the city’s social events to discover what’s occupying the Mumbaiker heart and mind.
Here are four catchphrases and buzzwords that you’re sure to brush up against when you encounter the hoi polloi.
‘Have you tried some Potato Milk?’
You can’t spend an evening with Mumbai’s chattering classes without running into at least one trendy health food faddist waiting for an opportunity to hold forth on her dietary preferences and deep knowledge of nutrition. Give her half a chance and you will be offered a deep dive into the wonders of fermented foods (Kombucha!); the beauty of bowls (Acai! Burrito! Poke!); the miraculous healing powers of kelp and seaweed; the advantageous effects of turmeric lattes; the sensation of probiotic sodas and of course, the phenomenon of potato milk.
This is a woman who, when asked for her dietary preferences for a sit-down dinner, sends you a three-page long email with helpful links to websites she follows, for any explanations and recipes you might require. For her, plant-based meats, almond, soy, and oat milk are yesterday’s thing, and baking her own sourdough and vegan cookies is a daily ritual.
Over the course of the evening, she will tell you in great detail about her farm–to–table sourcing arrangements and why practising ‘flexitarianism’ will save not only your gut but the planet.
All this as she wolfs down the aloo-gobhi, butter chicken, and naan on her plate, because of course, today she’s practising ‘flexitarianism’.
Cryptic crypto currency
This one’s for the big boys (and girls). Time was when the city’s alpha males, the ones who booked the PDRS in the high-end Japanese eateries and owned the biggest yachts parked at Apollo Bunder, were either investment bankers, owned hedge-funds or were heavily invested in the stock market.
That was then. Recently, you only have to enquire what keeps the flashy thirty-something known for his wall to wall collection of Hussains in such fine fettle and you will receive a master class in crypto-currency; “I have a hedge fund dealing in crypto “he will respond breezily, secure in the knowledge that the phrase is enigmatic enough to stun you into awed silence. However, if you reveal your ignorance and demonstrate even the slightest curiosity about what on earth that means, be prepared to sit through a couple of hours of enlightenment, where the intricacies of Wash Trade (no, not to do with the dhobi or even money laundering) blockchains, time stamping, hash coin, alt coins, and GPU price rise are explained in great and even more confusing detail, while your dinner gets cold, your host gets old and the party is ready to fold…
For such is the numbing effect of the cryptocurrency universe on ordinary mortals, who have barely got their head around to conducting a successful transaction on Swiggy…
Pre-loved heirlooms
Perhaps it’s a fall- out of the pandemic and the unending lockdowns, resulting in so many women finding that among the multitudinous outfits lying under- utilised in their closets, their saris were given the shortest shift. Or it might just be a sign of the changing times and fashions, but all of a sudden there seems to be a deluge of glorious second-hand saris finding their way into commercial outlets and markets for sale.
Vibrant Kanjeevarams from Tamil Nadu; delicate Chikankaris from Lucknow; beguiling Bandhanis from Gujarat; bewitching Banarsis from Varanasi; all impeccably preserved- but unmistakably used, old and worn, now seeking new homes and new owners.
Except, rather than being referred to as ‘second hand’ ‘cast off’ or even ‘pre-owned’ which doesn’t do justice to their beauty, women have come up with a host of innovative and charming names to describe these heritage handme -downs. Some of our favourites happen to be: ‘preloved saris,’ ‘saris with stories,’ ‘legacy saris and ‘upcycled heirlooms’.
Drop-in at a pop-up sale, or a fashionable ladies’ lunch, and chances are you will be sure to get introduced to the phenomenon and the many imaginative names invented by the chattering classes to describe it.
‘I’m working on an OTT project’:
Time was when those who were at a professional loose end could always fall back on the long- honoured ploy of responding with: ‘I’ve got a few consultancies’, when they were faced with an interlocutor, demanding to know what they were doing with themselves these days.
You know the drift: lost your job or faced with the collapse of your business? Down and out and unemployable? Flat broke without two paisa to rub together? What else would any right -thinking Mumbaiker do, but resort to the tried and tested trick: “I’ve got a few consultancies going..’
But of late, there has been a slight change in the stratagem. Perhaps because so many people employed the ‘consultancy’ ruse and every one cottoned on that it was a euphemism, of late, the subterfuge employed by the perenniallyunoccupied is: ‘I’m working on a few OTT projects…’
You could have been a former plumber, a one- time pirate or a recently -fired product manager, but if you say you’re busy working on an OTT project, people assume you’re in the process of creating the next Rocket Boys or Paatal Lok. No one will dare ask you to elaborate further, in deference to your imminent genius, IP rights and auteur’s privacy.
In this regard, ‘I’m working on a few OTT projects’ which you might hear from half a dozen lips during the course of a single evening on the city’s social circuit, is the ultimate conversation stopper.