When prime-time pranayama expert and gomutra enthusiast Baba Ramdev launched his Ayurvedic brand Patanjali’s first fashion label ‘Paridhan’ in Delhi last week, it seemed the entire industry was hell bent on making way for the new #BossBaba in town. After introducing us to products like suspiciously manufactured instant noodles and an almond oil that doubles up as lubricant, the saffron-clad saviour of swadeshi is back to give you the Babaji ki jadi-booty you’ve been waiting for. And now that Alok Nath’s left behind a sanskar-shaped void in the world, #BossBaba comes through to save your values and wallets.
The commercial king of kapalbhati has taken some time off his inhalation exercises to bring you three very promising and appropriately titled fashion lines: Aastha (faith) for women, Sanskaar (moral values) for men, and Livefit for everything in between (read: yoga is love, yoga is life). And if you thought your only options were saffron loincloths, kurta-pyjamas and yoga mats, #BossBaba has cleared all confusion with a tweet from the store’s opening, whose attendees included fashion ka jalwa-maker Madhur Bhandarkar, where he offered to sell two T-shirts and a pair of jeans worth Rs 7,000 for Rs. 1,100 on the auspicious five-days of Diwali.
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Aspiring entrepreneurs take note of this business strategy that most schools fail to teach you. It’s called ‘Chutiya Banana’, and it’s as simple as incorrectly inflating the price of something, then deducting it by a large percentage (sale!), then propping it up as a comparison platform for how much your customer is saving.
On paper, the concept of ‘Paridhan’ is a blessing in disguise to Gen Z, who are known to favour frugality and socially conscious brands. The problem is that simply playing around with prices to combat ‘evil mindsets spread by multinationals’ while selling what may as well be the same product minus the specific label, doesn’t quite make your brand swadeshi. Just like adding the word sanskari before ‘ripped jeans’ doesn’t change the fact that they are as distressed as #BossBaba’s authenticity.
Totally spacing on previously made statements saying “India is too hot for jeans”, the yoga poser’s latest stance is, “People are wearing torn jeans these days. So some of our jeans are ripped, but we haven’t ripped them so much also so as to lose our Indian-ness and our values.” Such values coming from a society whose concept of clothing goes from the perfect outfit to pochha (mop) real quick. Because fashions fade, but jugaad is eternal.
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