Reality television has been a lightning rod for conversations around Indian culture of late. If Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking throws light on the regressive, sexist, racist and casteist world of weddings — even glorifies it, as some critics argue —Zee TV’s Dilli Darlings is a display of the tacky excesses, comic obliviousness and blind privilege of the super-rich.
The show is an Indian spinoff of the Real Housewives franchise -- a bunch of affluent older women who flit between shopping for party outfits, partying and locking horns over contrived premises. Watching this show amid the massive economic and humanitarian crises afflicting the country, in the shadow of thousands of starvation deaths due to lockdown, is a curious experience. But do we really care? As one Dilli Darling says in the opening scene, "I’m too glam to give a damn".
The show features 10 women spread across the suburbs of west and south Delhi, living in glasshouses, and claims to give a peek into the lives of the super-rich elite of the capital. While it might be painting in broad strokes, it does display the gauche, loud North Indian in all its blinding, cringe-worthy glory.
The first episode starts with Shalu Jindal, a pious woman offering prayers in her home temple with elaborate deities for her Facebook audience. The cameraperson is Santosh, her domestic help who is half-jokingly threatened with dire consequences if the video is not shot well and appreciated on social media.
But Shalu is not just a devotee of God, as we see next from a montage of her walking through a massive closet. "If I have to repeat any clothes, I feel like it’s the greatest injustice," she says. Shalu likes to wear heels, dress up and be driven about town in her Porsche. She is traditional yet a modern go-getter. She does what she wants but also remains a model wife and mother—a fairly common archetype of the ‘liberated’ woman in our neoliberal nightmare. Most participants in the show conform to this trope, though each has their own quirks. Some are homemakers, others high-flying event managers, bar owners, makeup artists, models, aspiring actresses and so on.
I was drawn to the show for the same reasons that most are turning to ‘reality’ TV: escape into a ridiculous alternate reality of gross excess, the unvarnished portrayals of rich Delhi aunties, their exuberant taste in makeup, clothes, interiors and their internal dramas.
Watching it at this particular moment also highlights the disdain India’s rich has always had for the working classes. When her chauffeur, Raj, gently scrapes her Audi while pulling out of the driveway, Pooja Dua scolds him to watch out. To drive the point home, she threatens to cut from his salary the traffic fines he has been allegedly racking up. The camera cuts to Raj’s absolutely mortified face before she asks him to stop much before her destination: a designer clothing store. She is afraid of being seen stepping out from a fancy car and thus, overcharged. The show plays up such cringe-worthy moments for comedy. As we are slowly introduced to the rest of the cast and their perfectly relatable backstories, the larger arc of the season becomes clear: the "darlings" will convene for party after party and try to outdo each other.
The show alternates between being a realistic parody of the rich and ignorant, nudging us to laugh at their tacky bourgeoise vapidity and celebrating their power. In retrospect, it could be an apt metaphor for the callous political class running this vast, diverse country.