As I lie in bed, still awake at 4 am, pulling the bobby pins out of my previously perfect Deepkia Padukone-esque hair bun, I mull over what the Lahori shaadi season has evolved into: never ending dance practises, held and attended by people who still seem to be stuck in high school.
But dance practices aren’t the pinnacle of the problem, they’re just a minor part of it.
The problem is the people who are at the dance practices: Lahoris. Mind you, I happen to be a proud Lahori myself, but maybe I belong to a dying breed of Lahoris; I don’t measure my self-worth based on the number of weddings I’m invited to and I don’t boast about how many people are dying for me to attend their dance practises.
Being the ‘lead dancer’ is to Lahoris what being a cheerleader or jock is to American high schoolers. What is so great about being stuck in a room, modestly sized if your cousin or friend is blessed with rich parents, with twenty plus people who are trying their best to learn dances just so they can one up the other side of the wedding party. When did it become like this? Or more importantly, if it was always like this, why aren’t people growing out of it?
It’s not the dance practises, it’s the cavalier Lahori attitude.
The place that was once called the city of Gardens has slowly but surely lost its appeal; the only ‘culture’ that exists now is that on display, showing the promise of a heritage that was lost decades ago and now is only a smokescreen for those willing to stop and stare a while. The pomp and show of late-night parties at farmhouses, weddings that seemingly go on forever and kitty-parties that rack up the bills at the latest in place, when once removed reveal nothing but a void – a void that is often filled by gossip, narcissism and fake flattery.
Is Lahore a city where ambition comes to die? Where careers don’t flourish because everyone is caught up trying to prove that they are already successful? Probably.
Lahore is the land of the entitled, where a Land Cruiser and a LV bag earns you respect but grit doesn’t mean much; small talk skills mean more than your words having any weight. This is a city full of entitled kids who never learned to ‘#adult’.
So the next time you go to a dance practise or a Saturday night party, don’t miss out on the socialite who is still trying to prove her worth by name dropping every fifteen seconds or the boy who can’t stop talking about his latest trip to Europe-which was obviously funded by his parents. See through the superficial facade and realise that if you aren’t one of them, that’s a good thing, because it means you’ve actually grown up rather than letting the toxicity fester around you. The author can be followed here on Twitter and here on Instagram. To connect email at s.akhtar@propergaanda-com-676451.hostingersite.com