Life on a Role

My Way!
I consciously let my husband be the boss, and make the big decisions. I let him be the man. It was a role I played, and I played it well Rina Dhaka, designer, mother, wife and daughter-in-law tells us how she made her way up in the fashion industry, despite pressures & pulls at home. And how she stays calm & happy through it all! By Payal Puri
Rina Dhaka is not what I expect, but that
is not her fault. It is mine, for having clichd expectations. In my defence, I was prepared for the image: That of an attractive, successful d esigner who has had her own label for two decades; shes also had a strong marriage for 20 years, is mother to two teenage boys, and lives on an expansive farm in Delhis upscale Sainik Farms. Therere even three dogs to complete the picture-perfect scenario. But then theres a beyond. The first sign that this household is not surreally perfect comes from the dogs. They pay absolutely no attention to Rina, despite her alternately tempting them with slices of cheese, or scolding in an army-general tone. But the big surprise is Rina herself, at once candid and private; approachable, and yet with a certain natural reserve. She is no designer diva; in fact, she is almost impossibly real, even when trailing down the stairs in a sweeping black skirt with a mile-long train, looking every inch like the models she dresses up for her shows. She confronts her flaws or what she perceives as her flaws instead of trying to cloak them, a trait that comes through at least a dozen times during our conversation.

The Wonder Years

Today Rina may seem to the manor born, but her growing up years couldnt have been further from her current reality. I grew up between Chandigarh and Shimla, she says, and went to college at GCG in Chandigarh. We called it GCG to look cool but it was basically the Government College for Girls! Her family comes from grounded roots. My father was a farmer, she says, and the role of women in our home was just to look fair and get married at the right age. Given this mindset, fashion design should have been a world away, but for circumstances that came to her aid. My dad, on a friends advice, moved to Delhi to set up a small business venture and so I arrived here, just after school. I was enrolled at a polytechnic to study fashion design because it seemed to them like a home-sciencey thing for a girl to do to pass time But those two years, however simplistic, set Rina up for a career in fashion. She went on to

PHOtOGrAPHS By rItESH SHArMA SOUrCING ANd StyLING By rISHI rAJ MAKEUP & HAIr By NIdHI KHUrANA

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To be honest, my desire to work wasnt fuelled by career ambition. It gave me the opportunity to go out and party
intern at Intercraft, then the biggest garment exporters in the country. Her family wasnt prepared for this. There was no concept of it in my home, girls didnt go to work. And I was all of 18. My father didnt speak to me for a year. But she was craving the freedom to go out and see the world, wear the clothes she wanted, have a boyfriend, to party. To be honest, my desire to work wasnt fuelled by career ambition. It gave me the opportunity to go out and party; that was simply the focus of those years for me! Her mother, like mothers since time immemorial, was caught in the crossfire. Shed be hanging out of the balcony waiting for me to get home, and shed turn the hands of the clock back, cover it so my father didnt know when I was getting home! Those years brought many firsts, including her first slap! I was out at Ghungroos (a discotheque), at Delhis Maurya Sheraton, when I was supposed to be sleeping over at a friends. My Dads friend saw me. You can imagine the ruckus that followed! Rina was driven by a desire to make an independent living. She took up a couple of modelling offers. This was merely a means to stay independent. Besides, my family had convinced me that I wasnt anything great to look at they were all betterlooking, she grins. And of course, my biggest focus of all had happened: I had met, and was madly in love with Ajay. Her insistence on marrying a man of her choice one outside the caste was the next big battle. But you know how it is, she laughs, it was eventually better for my father that I marry, even out of the caste, with all the shame and scandal that would bring, than the fact that I stay single. So there I was, engaged at 22, married by 23. did shows, judged events like Miss India, did shoots we became part stylist-part ad agency-part designer. I can imagine how alien this was to my husband! If she has someone to thank for helping her balance out things, its her mother-in-law. She is a strong woman. She was, still is, a dominant force in the family, and somewhere, I think, my husband grew up used to a woman who had her say, who did her thing. And my mother-in-law used to talk about how shed go and stay at the Ritz in London in the 1970s, and in Paris. Yet, she was still is very much the true Punjabi Mamma, she says, adding, Her sons always belonged to her, not to their wives! But she brought emancipation, in her family, for the women. When we were getting married, the objection was all at my familys end. Punjabis (her family are Jats) absorb cultures from all over. Food is the centre of the universe and Mamma is Mamma, because she cooks better than any cook theyve ever had. The sons adore her. Ajay has two brothers,

the three of them have a garments business together, they meet at the factory daily and Mamma visits them there. Thats their territory, and my sisters-in-law and I dont intrude! she grins. She realises today though that she must have been a frustration to her mother-in-law when she first came into the family. I was an independent working girl who did very little around the house; my mom would pick up after me. My room looked like it had been hit by a tornado daily, and it mustve been my mother-in-law, armed with servants, who took care of it. My cupboards were impeccably kept and if she ever got upset about it, I never got to hear. That was remarkable.

The Mythical Work-Life Balance

That didnt mean, though, that she received encouragement for her work. It was never considered more than a hobby, she smiles. I dont think my husband ever really understood fashion or chose not to but I realise he still had to put up with the travel, the shows, the time away, the unconventional lifestyle my work imposed on us. The adjustments werent all on his part though. The odds were definitely against me, and it was up to me to make them work, she says. I wasnt around a lot of the times when I wanted to be. And I always had to make sure that work was close to home; I had to move my workers and the factory any time we shifted home. She is candid about the dynamics of her marriage, the ebb and flow that made it work. I think what worked for us has been that I always earned her own money, even before I got engaged. There is a power that comes with that, an independence of thought and action. But at the same time,

EASY RADIANCe!
n Rina is incredibly t and has good skin both body
and face need little embellishment. I dont know who to thank for that, she laughs. I do very little. Yes, when guilt strikes I sometimes go for a run, but overall, I think its because of just being active For my skin too, I do little. Earlier, there would be days I didnt even wear sunscreen and was always guilty! Fortunately in the last three odd years Ive been involved with a great beauty range and discovered some wonderful products, I especially love the new radiance range because its a guilt-free and easy routine: anti-ageing-cum radiance-cum sunprotection rolled into one. It gives me an instant, youthful radiance Perfect for my kind of challenging life where I work in the factory, drive with the sun streaming into the car, and have to be looking good within minutes after that! Theres no time for self-indulgence. This is my saviour!

20 Years & Counting

Her husband had certainly acquired a handful to deal with. Rina laughs and admits, Ajay thinks I dont give him enough credit for what he went through. Fashion was coming into its own, designers like Rohit Khosla, Rohit Bal, Suneet Varma, we hung out together,

1. Out for a casual walk with former US President Bill Clinton 2. All smiles while attending a formal luncheon...

1. Being applauded by her models during one of her shows 2. With actor Deepika Padukone, whos wearing one of her creations

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I still value the time Ajay and I go somewhere in the car together . Thats often our only alone time...
omeone had to be boss. I consciously s let my husband be the boss, and make the big decisions. I let him be the man, let him believe he was the intelligent one. It was a role I played, and I played it well. If he yelled, I cowered, and when I went to the factory (hers) well, thats where I turned into the violent psycho! she laughs. Her sharp mommy gaze spots her o lder son barefoot in the distance and she yells out at him without breaking her train of thought. She also coordinates schedules to drop Jai, her 13-year-old, to soccer practice, and harangues the older one, Kaith, about his pre-board exams, all while talking to staff at her factory, instructing the cook, and being the gracious host to our crew How did she keep the balance, then? It was hard, all around. Our business is obsessive, unstructured, things go wrong, you need to work all hours and then the kids started saying youre never home, they blamed me for their school performance suffering. Its simplistic to say work-life balance. But you cant balance these things. At some stage, something always gives You do the best you can. In fact Im currently on a sabbatical of some sort, since October. It was important to take that time. she laughs. But I think its easier for women, for men it is more complex. When a woman works hard, it is ironical but it probably helps her stay committed. I think we probably all have a need for attention but when youre involved with a job you enjoy, you get so much of that attention at work that you dont necessarily crave it somewhere else. You wrap up that job and you go home where you want to be with someone who knows you well. Their home is not a reflection of brand Rina Dhaka. Our home is a reflection of all the people who live in it. At home, I am not Rina Dhaka, I am Mrs Sharma (her married name) I still value the time Ajay and I go somewhere in the car together. Thats often our only alone time. Work also moves your focus from your own self and your own worries and self-fears. Your mind is often your own enemy, it can kill you through overanalysis. One of my big life changes came 10 years ago when I started chanting I do not do it for religious purposes. Its only about calming myself and 10 years ago I was a wreck, obsessive and panicky and constantly hassled with lifes demands. Chanting has given me control over my emotions, as a wife, a parent, an employer...

Being Mom
One of the harder challenges came during her childrens early years at school. The boys go to a fabulous school where families from many different life-realities are represented. But my profession, especially in the early days, made people wonder. You know, youd go to a party, and your photograph with a glass of wine is in the paper, and no one knows you nursed that one glass all evening, so you acquire that image, and then if your child does something wrong its because mommy doesnt have the time, she is this little nut from fashion. It took some time and effort for me to actively reassure the school that we were responsible parents The parent in action is evident in her eagle-eyed instructions to the children even while she chats with me, between outfit changes for the shoot.

Keeping Her Marriage Working

You know, with Valentines Day around the corner, it amuses me because its time for my boys now to get into this My challenge is with Ajay, to convince him that if we go out to a restaurant, we will have something to say to each other,

1. In her mothers embrace 2. At the wedding in 19xx 3. Taking a break with her husband Ajay, and her sons Kaith and Jai...

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