Yesteryear models reunite with 'Godmother' of fashion choreography

On stage are Interior designer and noted aesthete Kavita Singh film actor Deepak Parasher dance director Salome Roy Kapur jewellery designer Marianne Rao cancer survivor Esther Daswani actor and artist Kiran Juneja fashion choreographer Lubna Adams actors Pheroza Modi and Nandini Sen business professional Nandini Kamdar nee Naqi Jehan luxury brand marketing professional Adrianne lsquoAnnarsquo Bredemeyer and businessman Asgar Jehan Off the stage at Tata Theatre NCPA actor Zeenat Aman quietly absorbs instructions Almost all of them are beauty contest winners models actors and activists mdash the nationrsquos first harvest of ambassadors of beauty and eleganceJeannie flanked by Lubna Adams left and Dolly Thakore rear centreWhat Jeannie Naoroji sees young models who need to be repeatedly told to Zip the lips girls Focus or Models shouldnrsquot talk or Did I tell you to speakJeannie Naoroji 90 choreographs Kiran Juneja at a rehearsal for the awards night fashion show PicsSuresh KKThe scene is the rehearsal for Fashion Rewind a show that finally took place last Wednesday Jeannie was awarded the Laadli Lifetime Achievement Award for Fashion Design and Choreography The awards celebrate women in the field of media arts and advertising Past recipients have included Zohra Sehgal and Shaukat Azmi This year itrsquos Jeannie says Dolly Thakore national coordinator for the 7th National Laadli Media and Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity We choose women who are leaders in their field and over 90 years of age she addsZeenat Aman in green worked with Jeannie even before she won the Miss Asia Pacific title in 1970 Behind her to her right is Salome Roy KapurJeannie at 90 years and eight months is a veteran choreographer of over 4000 shows stretching from the mid 1950s to early 1990s Those were shows before there were fashion designers or even an Indian fashion industry It was more like entertainment with a dash of business thrown in says Anna There would be a room or an exhibition where a cloth mill would showcase the latest wares to buyers We would have a show with clothes made from that same fabric It was more a tamasha and we did our own hair and makeupFormer modelturnedactor Deepak Parasher strikes a poseJeannie became the director of these shows because of her interest and experience in dance movement Born in Karachi in undivided India she studied ballet up to the week before her wedding in 1951 In 1954 she was involved with raising funds through shows for the National Association for the Blind and the Maharashtra State Council for Women We had to do a fashion show for the institution Someone saw me dancing to music and asked me to choreograph fashion shows she says And thatrsquos how it beganFashion aboard shipsThe assembled cast has been reminiscing about those shows which were mini adventures Paced as entertainment they would supplement a fabric trade show The mills used the event as live expositions of their new products Calico and Hakoba Mills held travelling shows There was an adventure on a cruise liner that sailed up and down the river Rhine in Germany where shows were held twice a day Then came a memorable trip to Moscow for a textile exhibition which was supposed to last four days but stretched to 25 days We almost lost Sam there his heart belonged to Russia Jeannie saysShersquos talking about veteran stage director Sam Kerawalla Hersquos here too handling the lights and production for the awards like he has for 40 years Handling music production in place of Sam is old friend and collaborator Sarosh Bhabha is his son Kaizad Can you believe it he passed away just in February says Jeannie We worked together for more than 40 years Kaizad began accompanying his father when he was 10 and was present on that Rhine trip He grew up in the company of all the women present on stage today which explains why they maternally pat his cheeks and ask about his recent elective surgery In the background Sam and Salomeacute break into a jive Marianne lsquoDaldarsquo Rao nee DrsquoSouza Pheroza Modi nee Cooper and Esther Daswani mock glide pace like seductive tigresses and goof about Asgar Jehan an old dance partner of Salomersquos takes former beauty queen and fashion writer Meher Castellinorsquos place as they practice entries He walks with feminine grace as the girls hoot Esther calls out to Jeannie Donrsquot grow old before your time JeannieYou havenrsquot changedJeannie theatrically counts to 10 sitting in the front seat of the audience One must count to 10 before retaliating to a rude person You girls have become too clever for me she yells Jokers I am not amused at allThatrsquos Jeannie each model says Feisty professional and a yeller Irsquom too old I canrsquot be scolded like this laughs Kiran She thinks we are still 18 says Esther But nobody says that to her they do as they are toldEach of them has walked for Jeannie though the 60s 70s 80s and the 90s Salome began as long back as 1968 and worked with her till 1977 Zeenat worked with her before she won Miss Asia and after and during the time I learnt to walk the ramp from her which helped me win an international contest and put me on the path to movies says Zeenat She like all the others has taken out time from a busy schedule to rehearse for the show I think if anyone has contributed to your growth itrsquos nice to acknowledge it she says presumably speaking for everyoneWith her knowledge of dance movement Jeannie would choreograph the shows resembling mini ballets There would be three or four sections showing Indian wear casual Indian wear casual western wear and perhaps some avantgarde designs We would open with an aarti or a namaskar and then move about occupying the stage striking poses It was not just walking up and down like it is now Jeannie says This format is being replicated for the tribute show that her former colleagues have put together Designers Wendell Rodricks Neeta Lulla and Rudra Kapur of Burlington have offered to design the costumesTo all of them Jeannie is unchanged mdash she still dresses in a monotone and a flourish of a trendy accessory mdash a scarf then an ikat jacket now with a coordinated headscarf Thick framed glasses match the black rock entwined in a silver ring in one hand which matches a gunmetal band on a finger in the other Her earrings are black buttons Her decisions are made in a splitsecond No not this music try the other she barks When asked whether she doesnrsquot like it she says Itrsquos not a matter of liking it should match the clothes To the models she instructs Glide girls Raise your chins Remember you are showing off the clothes Anna please put the bag down be a model Make a sensational pose Smile Smile out of your hair out of your bodyThis is what we wanted says Salome To bring the old Jeannie backOut of the theatre the girls recall her as a mother hen always wanting to know if your personal life was okay whether they were comfortable in a strange land and eating well She forked Lubnarsquos career into a new direction with a backhanded compliment This was in 1991 or rsquo92 Lubna recalls About six or seven days before a show Jeanniersquos daughter called me and said lsquoMy mother is ill and canrsquot do the show She has said you will do itrsquo I didnrsquot know anything about choreography and said so Her daughter replied lsquoIf mother thinks you can do it you can do itrsquo So I directed and walked the show After that I grew in that directionThe crew had grand plans of celebrating Jeanniersquos life with giant picture backdrops flowery speeches and tokens ofaffection Jeannie doesnrsquot want to know about all that Itrsquoll get a bit boring if you keep talking about Jeannie Naoroji she tells Dolly who is working on the script to fill the time between costume changes Why donrsquot you talk about the models insteadTo journalists writing about her she repeatedly says Donrsquot overdo itTo the world at large she says I am in my element when I say something rude