YES Priyanka Chopra was not dressed properly for meeting PM Modi and NO, she was not trolled for being a woman, as media would want you to believe

Priyanka Chopra is one of the “sexiest women alive” according to the Maxim’s Hot List 2017.  She’s hot, she’s successful and she’s made a mark in Hollywood, we’re certainly proud of this young Indian actress who was a top heroine in Bollywood before she decided to try her luck in the United States with the popular series ‘Quantico’.

Priyanka is now going to feature in the movie adaptation of another popular TV series ‘Baywatch’. However, that’s not the only reason for her being in the news in India.

Pee Cee or Piggy Chops, as she is popularly known, happened to be in Berlin around the same time as PM Modi who’s now on a 4-nation official tour of Europe. Apparently Priyanka Chopra expressed a desire to meet the Indian PM and sought an appointment with him. The PM obliged and everything was fine till she turned up for the meeting in a summery, knee-skimming dress and the pictures of her sitting with the PM who wore a formal Bandhgala, went viral.

Why they went viral was because of the obvious incongruity, while the PM was formally dressed, the lady who requested the appointment chose to walk in casually dressed. Anybody who has ever worked in an organization of some repute knows that there’s a certain etiquette that people follow for formal meetings. First and foremost, one dresses according to the occasion. Not only was Priyanka meeting someone older, the person also held a position much higher than hers, by that yardstick alone her outfit needed to be formal.

If we take a look at most of the tweets expressing displeasure at Priyanka’s choice of dress, they focus on the fact that as Indians we tend to keep in mind the age and status of the person we’re visiting while dressing for the occasion.

Is it too much to ask if we, as Indians expected Priyanka Chopra to choose something slightly more formal?

Like Arie Purushu, fashion watcher and blogger, (‘The Asian Age’) remarked “There’s nothing wrong with the concept of a dress code, given it solves a specific social or functional need.” As some of us may recall, some time ago a Chattisgarh IAS officer was pulled up for wearing sunglasses during the PM’s visit.

According to another ‘etiquette expert’, “when one is meeting a high level personality it’s best to mirror what he or she will wear, which will in all probability be a tailored suit and power colours instead of casual prints.” By this count, Priyanka’s breezy, print dress certainly didn’t match the PM’s formal black suit.

Being a seasoned actress, Priyanka Chopra knew the meeting would keep the shutterbugs clicking, it was a perfect Photo-op, yet she walked in need nonchalant and uncaring! For those who argue that she was traveling and might not have had access to formal attire, one can only remind them that Priyanka Chopra is a well-known actress and bound to travel in style, equipped for every occasion, even the unexpected and unforeseen. And if worst came to worst, what about the stylish stores in and around Berlin, they would surely have provided the needful!

Those who say Priyanka Chopra got ‘trolled’ for being a woman, where and when did anyone mention ‘gender’? Had Shah Rukh Khan turned up to meet the PM dressed in shorts, the reaction would’ve been the same. It’s a question of propriety NOT gender, nor can it be dismissed as ‘moral policing’! While some people did state that they would have been happy if Priyanka Chopra had turned up in a sari or any Indian dress, most people objected to the lack of formality and would have been fine with a trouser suit or a gown. As for those silly jibes about people not knowing that this is how folks dress in the West, take a reality check ‘Know Alls’ and see how many people living abroad would go to meet a Head of State in a summer dress and bare legs!

Yes, there’s a code about how much skin one flashes at formal meetings, too much is considered inappropriate and distracting. As far as one can remember, women in the West wear stockings to work and meetings, not that our Priyanka was born abroad! She’s lived in India till recently and is very familiar with our mores!

Nobody ‘attacked’ Priyanka Chopra for wearing a dress, most Indian women of her age wear them these days and nobody bats an eyelid. What displeased some people was her seeming indifference about the lack of etiquette, she is, after all, a public figure and thus needs to be careful about her choices.

There are some ‘etiquette professionals’ who have even pointed out that the proper way to sit during a formal meeting is to cross your legs at the ankles and not at the knees, especially if one is meeting a world leader! But those are rules followed in the West, what would our ‘liberals’ know about them!

The unnecessary storm in a teacup was, in fact, deliberately created by needlessly shrill ‘liberals’ who call themselves ‘feminists’. They chose to pounce on the misgivings of a few expressed on Social Media, seeing it as an opportunity to write irrelevant columns about ‘moral policing’ and ‘oppression of women’! The fact that some of these outraged ladies did not even bother to hear out the other side before coming out with ridiculous tweets like “why wasn’t the PM wearing a dhoti-kurta if you expect Priyanka to wear a sari” etc. proved once again that those who shout the loudest about ‘trolling’ on Social Media are actually the worst kind of Trolls themselves!

Incidentally, today’s ‘Delhi Times’ chooses to make it seem as if Priyanka was ‘trolled’ for the length of her dress, will someone please tell them the difference between etiquette and ‘policing’ or is that too much to ask? Nobody’s telling her what to wear, we’re just suggesting that she would’ve been better appreciated had she chosen to dress in keeping with the attention that such a meeting was bound to attract!

Meanwhile the Liberal Trolls had a field day using the brouhaha over Priyanka’s attire to vent their Modiphobia!!

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