It’s with unquenchable thirst and swirling delight that the new viral social queen, Shalini Passi, has swished in front of television cameras, glossed on cover stories and strutted on columns by society matrons. And the vicarious viewers can’t seem to get enough of it, demanding more and more of Passi.
The self-claimed dancer, artist, singer, swimmer, diver, gymnast, art promoter, patron and philanthropist, among other things, as her various Instagram profiles lavishly display, has been on a roll ever since Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives (FLBW) came out.
Passi is, as is well-known, an established mega art collector and socialite of the capital. But the tsunami of adoration, awe and wonderment by bewitched viewers and commentators that has swept over Passi could be the envy of every society influencer chasing modern fame.
Shalini Passi at her house in New Delhi. Photo: Wikimedia commons
Passi scored on many fronts. She laid out her opulent lifestyle of a giant McMansion in Lutyens’ Delhi – adding that she doesn’t know how many rooms it has – with sweeping grassy lawns and a giant Subodh Gupta sculpture in the centre; her entourage of house managers, stylists, secretaries, with iPads and iPhones sending Whatsapp messages to the kitchen for a cup of hot water for madam’s overworked throat to being ready for any BTS footage.
Then there was the adoring therapist who had several sessions with Passi over months to make some meaning of her life and who Passi happily dumped after realising fame was her calling.
We saw masterjis for classical music training and dancing lessons, from Bharatnatyam to Kathak to Bollywood; instructors for pilates and other workouts; her splashy couture gowns and dresses from morning till bedtime; rock hard jewellery, vintage clutches, vertiginous heels, chunky diamond-studded tiaras and hair accessories, and juiced out liquid diets of soups and crushes or anything that can be consumed only with a straw. If the cameras luxuriously lavished on her lifestyle more than anyone else in the series to make her look ludicrous, it achieved the exact opposite. The excited rage that erupted on social media in the weeks that followed was stunning to say the least.
Was it admiration for Passi as she lived her life unabashedly, or was it a wave of sympathy for her, as she was singled out for ridicule and catty comments by the other contestants, even as she doggedly refused to be drawn into any feud or confrontation?
Passi simply posed as a couture-crusted Radhe Maa, the sassy spiritual guru from Gurdaspur, with a simple retort to any jibe or skirmish: “It’s bad for my skin.”
So then what is Passi doing in a reality show that’s all about simulated bitchiness, high drama and odious feuds?
Meanwhile, unaware are the fawning fan clubs as Passi stealthily used FLBW for personal rebranding as a social celebrity in the ‘big league’ which has eluded her all these years.
What makes her stand out is not just the high maintenance lifestyle that Passi has splashed in the OTT world – anyone with ambition and money can do it — she has deftly crafted a tantalising world of high art, music, books and dance as an intellectual armour to take on the world of ultimate celebrityhood.
Passi’s messaging says she’s not just rich, she’s in another stratosphere of high mind, high self-awareness, high spiritualism, high intellect and whatever else she proposes, and which she has weaponised to cut her compatriots with airy aplomb.
So how has Passi used her weapons of mass distraction?
A checklist:
Big Boss: Passi, who barely said much on FLBW, has been a chatterbox since the launch of the series. In one of her numerous interviews, Passi was unwittingly candid when she confessed that as an art patron, her voice was reaching a limited audience. The conversation was always the same and became stagnant, she said. So she began searching for a bigger platform, and ‘cinema’ (Shalini, it’s OTT not cinema) gave her the launch pad to reach a giant sea of viewers.
But the new season of Big Boss? It’s nothing more than a gathering of fame-hungry wannabes making a screaming and screeching display of their lives? Is exhibitionism your calling of a higher life?
Passi was not there as a housemate but as a guest for the day. But to talk of her positive energy and kindness that lifted the room; her desire to heal the sad and angry, as she revealed in yet another interview; all in one of the most crass reality shows which brings out the worst of human traits, is staggering.
Of course, she added that it’s important to reach out to the larger world so that she can convey her message of art, music, craft, women’s causes and other esoteric pursuits to the common masses.
Art for art’s sake: Passi’s eye-watering art collection is the envy of any collector. The range is simply breathtaking – Jeff Koons, Damian Hirst, Anish Kapoor, S.H. Raza, M.F. Hussain, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, you name the masters and they will probably be there, in addition to antiquities from all over the world.
According to her Instagram bio, Passi is patron of the Kochi biennale, a promoter of art and craft, has ecstatically written for Hello magazine on indian artists participating in the Venice biennale this year, the various India Art fairs and so on.
Shalini Passi. Photo: Instagram.
So why does she feel so stagnated and have the same repeated conversations as she confessed above?
The Shalini Passi Art Foundation is now permanently closed, after a show stopper live performance by Mithu Sen in 2019. But imagine the breadth of discovery and excitement if an art patron set out to find new artists, recognising them for their genius and scope, and introducing them to the world.
Imagine showing the works of unknown artists of the time, having solo exhibitions for them and pioneering a new art movement. Can there ever be a dull, stagnant moment?
Mish-Mash: It was the glitzy inaugural MASH Ball last year that opened FLBW’s latest season. Viewers were pulled into Passi’s extravagant costume ball where guests were told to dress up as a painting.
Passi stole the show as a scintillating Cleopatra, but there has been no ball this year, once touted by fawning media as Delhi’s own ‘Met gala’.
Passi’s MASH is a digital platform that’s a calendar list for art fairs, architecture, design, fashion and important shows all over the world. Apart from podcasts and informative newsletters, it has now evolved to include from last year, a young artist award ‘online’ exhibition.
Yes, there have been awards for artists working in new media (2019); women artists 2022; Mash Young artist award in 2022 and 2023. But there seems to be no update on the subsequent years.
Of the exhibitions sponsored by MASH for 2024, a majority are photo exhibitions by Passi herself from Banaras to Pahalgam, talks by her at a couple of art galleries in Delhi and Mumbai, an embroidery exhibition of artworks by Indian masters. All this, according to the website which has mysteriously vanished in the last two days.
While Passi may constantly sneer at Mumbai’s unenlightened and low brow crowd, she must certainly know about the Progressive Artists’ Group of the 1940s which revolutionised modern indian art in the country – from Souza to Hussain and all the grand masters, the JJ School of Art, the galleries and art collectors that elevated the art world over the last few decades. Sorry, to talk of Lalit Kala in Delhi as an inspiration for cultured Delhi. It’s a government organisation, and one can imagine the politics of babu (bureaucratic) patronage which can kill good art.
Life on a straw: There’s nothing more captivating than the ‘Sassy Passi’ parties hosted by six-year-old girls to 26-year-olds, apparently all over the country, as they dress up like Passi in a cloud of chiffon, sipping unstrained raw veg juices and throwing back ghee shots.
Now, Passi has an entourage of docs and new age health gurus who micromanage and give her expert advice on when and what to imbibe, so she can warn her fans on the risks of quaffing nutrient dense beet and celery juice.
And since when has a straw stopped the acid from champagne from ruining your teeth, as she solemnly claims, unless you stick the straw into your throat? Of course there were several Instagarm influencers endorsing the straw alongside her insta-gyaan but there should be a warning about ayurveda, naturopathy or whatever Passi promotes about its lifestyle and beauty benefits.
Book Hook: While the self-deprecating Bollywood wives may have joked about not knowing whether the artist is called Anish Gupta or Subodh Khanna, they were spot on when they saw Anish Kapoor on Passi’s wall.
But not to be outdone by Passi’s ‘without art my life would be meaningless’ hype, they decided to invite the Delhi gals to Mumbai for a reading in a bookshop. And an extract of the book, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, was going to be read by Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan.
Not surprisingly, the Bollywood wives looked painfully bored and as Saif droned on, he stopped to ask if anyone had read the book. As blank looks passed around, Passi leapt to say she had read it in school, and even added the last book she read was Eli Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love. Saif asked her if she remembered the first rule, or any at all, and a stumped Passi blustered saying she really can’t remember as there were 40 of them, even as knowing looks were exchanged by the rest in the room.
Perhaps it’s time Passi took Ernest Hemingway’s important tool to be a good writer for her self-discovery: “The most essential gift for a good writer is built-in, shockproof, bull shit detector – it’s the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.’’
Vrinda Gopinath is a senior journalist.
