DIVERSITY

Clothes Matter

Short guide on how much we care about appearances

India’s clothes aren’t very complicated, let me take you through them.

In the top left picture, with the little girl, I am wearing a green and pink cotton hand-loom saree with cotton embellishment on the pink border. It is for a casual gathering or work wear.

In my picture on the right bottom corner, I am wearing a Benarsi silk saree with gold embellishment, called Zari. It is festival wear.

My mother, bottom left, is wearing a navy blue synthetic saree. That’s a daily wear saree.

In the top right, the bright pink salwar kameez with golden embellishment is party wear. At a surprise party, I had no time to drape a saree.

In the bottom middle photo with my dad and brother, I am wearing a synthetic salwar kameez, daily wear.

Sarees have matching, tailored blouses, and petticoats, and zig-zag stitching of their raw edges, called Pico.

Tailors usually give three stitches in the inside of the blouse or a salwar kameez so that each stitch can be let out as you gain weight. I use a stitch remover or seam ripper for this.

A saree fall gives weight to the saree so it falls well, and behaves itself. It shouldn’t fly in the wind, like some shameless woman’s dress. In the photo below my saree has a fall, but is flying because of the wind on Candolim beach, Goa. It is a Mysore silk, which is a buttery and flowy silk. I am embarrassed as hell, because of the flying saree. See how I clutch at my clothes.

If you are truly fit and have no hips to speak of, you might be one of the few Indian women who wear jeans or trousers. Usually only Christians wear skirts.

In this photo I am on the extreme left. You may see a lot of demure, decent, draped women. We are feeling naughty and un-dressed because of the closely fitted clothes and missing scarves and drapes. This was at my reunion in Goa. Goa was colonized by the Portuguese, not the English, and it is like being abroad, not like in India. So we are in Western wear.

Men’s clothes

Men wear shirts and trousers, usually tailored. With belts. Belts give some gravity to the simple shirt and trousers. Belts are the new ties. Only salesmen and medical reps wear ties. They make me cringe, they try so hard.

In the photo collage above my brother the American(!)is not wearing his shirt tucked in. My father, God bless him, is perfectly turned out. You can be sure those pockets have money in the leather wallet and coins in the coin zipper, and a big white handkerchief in the other pocket. Don’t miss his belt.

For weddings men used to be bare-bodied and wear an angavastram, a towel-like upper garment, with a dhoti, a wrap or tie lower garment. Here my good friends Naveen and Mrudula have sent their Gowri Puja Festival photos. Naveen is wearing a silk angavastram with a dhoti. The golden Zari border on the angavastram declares his status. Men’s clothes are usually white, and the Zari borders small.

Mrudula is the girl in grey in the photo in Goa. Here she is in a blue Kanjivaram silk. Each part of India has its own kind of silk. Benaras, Kanjivaram and Mysore silks come from their own silk towns: Varanasi, Kanchipuram and Mysuru. Nowadays men have become very shy and don’t want to expose their chests. Just like women! So they have ditched the old system and have started wearing shervanis. When I carried shervanis for my cousins’ children, the lower garments were elasticized, no zipper. Much safer that way isn't it. The children were below 10.

Now, who in India would wear completely casual clothes? Like t-shirt and jeans? or shorts? People who cannot afford clothes, or Bollywood stars trying to show off their muscles. Such people will be riding bicycles, or they will walk to a bus, if they can afford the fare. They will never be in a car, because a car is a very big step. Barefoot — slippers — bicycle — scooter — car. I don’t mention shoes because nobody who needs to walk to work will wear shoes. When you get rich enough to buy a scooter, alongside you also buy shoes.

Ordinarily, I am in PPE, or before Corona I used to wear a white apron, so I am not even a qualifier among well-dressed women. Even a person like me who owns only one lipstick is so bothered by appearances.

When we saw the Jacob Blake video, we in India couldn’t believe that a person in a white sleeveless undershirt(called a baniyan or a ganji) was sitting in a car. White sleeveless undershirts are worn by manual laborers. They won’t even be invited to sit in their employers’ cars if they dress like that. If a gardener is sick, and has to be ferried to the hospital in his employers’ car, he will wear a full sleeved shirt.

Dress for your car drives.

Thank you for reading. 🙏🏻

Here’s a link to an article I wrote in Indian English.