Here's what that vitriol-laden 'The Cut' story on Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas gets really, really wrong

You may, or you may not, have read the hatchet job — sorry, we mean deeply detailed analysis — of the Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas romance and wedding that The Cut published  (and has since pulled down). For the moment, we’re going to overlook the irony of this click-bait article written to cash in on the momentum of the Chopra-Jonas wedding, accusing Priyanka of cashing in on Nick’s “fleeting” attraction to her to wrangle a Hollywood-career-enhancing wedding. We’re also going to silence our hunch that the entire rant — sorry, we mean report — seems ghost-written either by one of Nick or Priyanka’s jealous exes, or a journalist jealous of People magazine’s expensive scoop. [caption id=“attachment_5677911” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Look how happy they are! Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, at their reception in Delhi.[/caption] We’re also going to overlook the fact that The Cut story paints Nick Jonas as an utterly helpless lamb in the woods (and also one with some sort of Oedipus complex that draws him to “older women”) and PC as some scheming, ambitious, unscrupulous witch. Or that evidence of her ambition is offered via — wait for it — the private home theatres she’s installed in her New York and Mumbai homes that you guys! she doesn’t even use. (We’re assuming The Cut’s writer paid heavy donations towards PC’s GoFundMe campaign to purchase said home theatre systems and is upset that her contribution is yielding no return on investment.) We’re also going to overlook the writer’s confusing lack of awareness about Priyanka’s career before her Hollywood days, while attempting to get in a sly little dig — sorry, we mean pithy-as-all-hell zinger —about how her Quantico role, which “may seem somewhat minor”, made Priyanka “the first major Indian crossover star in America”. What we cannot overlook, what we absolutely cannot condone, is the writer’s startling ignorance of how an Indian wedding is conducted. We wouldn’t have minded it so much, but this is a journalist whose extensive coverage of the Kardashian family (‘Khloé Kardashian’s Daughter’s First Word Was a Threat’, ‘Is Kendall Jenner Continuing Her Family’s Dating Tradition?’, ‘Kim Kardashian Knows How to Party, Okay?!’, ‘When Did Each of the Kardashians Find Out About Tristan Thompson’s Cheating?’) has been far too exemplary to let such misguided writing on the hallowed celebration that is the Big Fat Indian Wedding pass. So in the interests of fairness, truth, solidarity, and every virtuous quality under the sun, we’re going to set the score straight. Here’s the spurious paragraph from the piece: “Like Priyanka said in her tweet earlier this year , the world would know if she got married, and she was right. Plus, I’m sure she was offended that people would assume her mangalsutra could be so small and nondescript [referring to the evil eye bracelet on her wrist that was mistaken briefly for a mangalsutra], considering the one she’s wearing now is just one massive diamond. She’s also taken their pre-wedding festivities to whatever level is above the next level. For the couple’s sangeet, or musical night (which is typically held the night before the marriage ceremony), Priyanka and Nick’s families performed on a stage set up that’s typically reserved for events such as the Academy Awards or the Tonys. And, frankly, I am offended that the evening was not televised — we all deserve to see Kevin Jonas and Sansa Stark perform on the same stage!” There’s so much wrong with these sentences, we don’t even know where to begin! First off, apart from the sindoor (which, as decreed by Sabyasachi — sorry, we mean society — must be of a certain width and brightness, in an actress’ appearances immediately after her wedding), the mangalsutra is a suhaag ki nishaani. The Cut, in scoffing at the diamond-encrusted one Priyanka has chosen, refuses to recognise its true import. Not only does this show a blatant disregard for a Bharatiya nari’s (or desi girl, as Priyanka prefers to be called) sentiment, it also fails to recognise what PC’s diamond mangalsutra really means — how much she values her new pati Nick. That comment about the sangeet and shaadi though — that’s a real bummer. Firstly, the Academy and Tony Awards sets have nothing on Indian wedding mandaps. There’s something to be said for the fact that some of India’s leading set/stage designers also do wedding decor. And yes, maybe we did see some snarky comments about how the stage for Priyanka-Nick’s sangeet had an “IIFA Awards waali feeling” but those homegrown comparisons we can take, you know? A lot of us movie buffs may spend a lot of our time angling for our films and actors to get an Oscar statuette, but that stage is nothing to write home about. Why, hamare yahaan toh even the neighbourhood Ganpati pandal is as elaborate. An Indian publication more esteemed than The Cut had reported in the not distant past that the Indian wedding market — at an estimated $50 billion (around ₹33,000 crore) — is the world’s second-largest, after the $70 billion US market. “And it is growing at an estimated 20 per cent a year,” the report added. It isn’t just celebrity weddings that form the lion’s share of that market. Not all of us can afford Enrique Iglesias or Jennifer Lopez or Bruno Mars , but we’ll at least get Manasi Scott. Not all of us can go to Tuscany, but by god, we’ll make do with Tbilisi . Not all of us book the Umaid Bhawan Palace, but we’ll make sure our plaster of paris imitation of it looks as good as the real deal (note to self: tell decorator to take off pink lighting scones, and make pillars taller). Heck, did you hear about the one time we hosted a wedding at the Palace of Versailles? Our wedding photo shoots span over several days, and involve the use of fake rain . A trip to New York, an underwater shoot, or hiring a helicopter for the best aerial shots of the bride and groom-to-be? All par for the course . We don’t send invitation cards, we send whole boxes. Oh, and don’t even get us started on the moolah we’re willing to spend on our Sabya and JJ Valaya lehengas and Rohit Bal sherwanis (or their less pricey Chandni Chowk knockoffs). We let nothing, and we repeat nothing, stop us from celebrating a shaadi in the grand style that it must be celebrated. Not even those inconvenient reports about how these ostentatious displays of wealth are vulgar in a country that has one of the highest numbers of malnourished children in the world. Don’t believe us? You have the option of going undercover and gatecrashing an India wedding, thanks to this start-up . Or you know, watch a Karan Johar movie. The next time you want to diss the scale of the Indian wedding or pretend that the Chopra-Jonas nuptials surpassed anything we’ve done in the past or will do in the future — think again. We can stand anything — even the personal attack on a national treasure like Priyanka Chopra — but not the implied vilification of the great institution that is the Big Fat Indian Wedding. Oh, and the next time you want to attack Priyanka Chopra, take a lesson or two from those Twitter trolls — sorry, we mean wits — who rained hellfire on her for wearing a dress when meeting Narendra Modi. Now, they know the right way to make a mountain out of a molehill.