The Cult of the 6-pack Bod
Radha Chadha -
Saturday, December 27, 2008 3:25 PM
Last night I saw Ghajini at a packed PVR and that's when it hit me: Ghajini is the best thing yet to have happened to the luxury market in India. It is one of those silent tipping points that we will look back at in a few years and say, that’s what changed the game for the men’s market here.
Let me explain why.
You need to hang hot clothes on hot bods, a commodity that’s in extremely short supply in India, especially among the well-off segment. So far, Indian men have pretty much led with their generous bellies, and that means the market for a Giorgio Armani suit – cut like a body glove – is very limited. An angular slim cut Prada suit would find the going even harder, with no room to hide a well-rounded protruding middle. A snug Dolce & Gabbana pair of jeans would squeeze it all up and spill it out in a wobbly muffin top.
So far the unstated norm for Indian men has been to display prosperity on the waist, and “healthy” was just a euphemism for “wealthy” and here’s my well-endowed tummy to prove it. But in recent years Bollywood has been changing that norm with the advent of hot bods like look-at-my-biceps Hrithik and phew-what-abs John. The cult of the 6-pack is spreading slowly but surely, with one star after another re-shaping his body. Salman has lost his didi-tera-devar-diwana puppy fat and transformed into a tightly packed fighting machine. Akshay has shed his cheez-badi-hai-mast-mast billowy-pajama-clad body in favor of a rippled leave-the-top-button-open Levi-ensconced one.
Beef steak has become the new mantra in Bollywood, so much so that the camera now doesn’t just caress the curves of the leading lady, but tarries instead on the rippled muscles of the leading man. Shahrukh Khan’s transformation in Om Shanti Om was another nail in the flab-on-screen coffin – the darde disco number may have had umpteen item-babes swaying their stuff but all eyes were locked on Shahrukh’s hardened 6-pack, with his shirt helpfully slipping off to reveal the well-worked contours of his torso.
Which brings me to Ghajini and the importance of the revolutionary new body that Aamir displays. The chocolate-faced QSQT boy next door, the rustic Lagaan farmer, the fun-loving Rang de Basanti youngster – Aamir has donned numerous avatars, but his body has always remained “normal”. Now at the age of 40-plus, he has re-shaped it into a rock-hard Terminator-like bastion. It is an amazing feat by any means, but its greater significance lies in its inspirational appeal for Indian men at large. Shahrukh’s Om Kapoor was a song-and-dance actor and therefore arguably in the realm of fantasy, but Aamir’s Sanjay Singhania is cast as a thinking man’s corporate hero, one that many would aspire to be like. And if Aamir can have a chiseled 6-pack, then perhaps I can too.
Suddenly, it makes wealth stored on the midriff seem so last season. Hard cash needs hard abs. The sort that slips in effortlessly into a Giorgio Armani. The sort that doesn’t need a sharp breath intake to close a Prada center button. The sort that doesn’t require anything more than Hrithik singlets to go with Dolce & Gabbana jeans.
The sort that gives plenty of hot bods to develop a “healthy” luxury brand market in India.