Naan, Baniyaan aur Makaan

Don't get startled
This is supposed to be a series of three articles each of which deals with the issue of Roti, Kapdaa and Makaan i.e. food, clothing and shelter cultures respectively.
This one is about Kapdaa.

Hmm. Where do I start? Should I start with caps and T’s and end up with socks and shoes? Or I’d rather talk about the general fashion culture.

The fashion bhaashan
Now what do people need to wear? Something to cover the upper half and something to cover the lower half. No, I have not been going nuts. If u read carefully, I had asked as to what people need to wear…not what they like to or want to.

Well considering today’s generation, girls, to be specific would rather wear nothing. If u are the partying type u’ll know. Unfortunately, these days even boys like to present themselves as pieces of meat.
Earlier it used to be different. People’s attire used to be region specific. I mean if u still sometimes get to watch republic day parades on national TV channel DD1 you’ll be able to see how different parts of India itself have so diversified cultures. All thanks to the necessity. Think about it. These people have diff types of clothing because of the various conditions that they lived in.

But nowadays one can see that even in the farthest parts of the world u can spot one or two wear denim clothing. Adios to the diverse culture. Talking about denims, jeans, jackets, shorts etc have kind of brought about a revolution in the world of apparel.
Stores have got plethora of designer clothing in denims. These including colors from decent, absurd to weird. If u have been to a Lee or Pepe store u’ll know. They have got these so called worn-out, stonewashed types, regular fits, foot-cuts, casual fits, cargos and even something called anti fits!! If I remember right in my time, I m not that old, just talking about 10-15 yrs back when I was a kid, people used to buy clothes for special occasions so that could flaunt them like jewelry and so that they had a feeling of looking as good as new. But now a kid wants to buy a new pair of jeans that looks old…the worn out type. Students would not shell out 500 bucks for a normal pair but would rather pay 2000 bucks for an old looking new pair. Makes me scratch my head.

Having said that I think you’d have had a good idea about the lower half. I have not written much about formal wear cause I don’t want to pretend that I know about something actually I don’t.

Over the top
Now this does not actually refer to headgear or jackets for that sake.
T-shirts. Every one in the family can wear them. Kids and adults included. And I am not joking. Take a break and visit the malls in Mumbai. At every another step you can see one or the other aunty sporting a T-shirt…with her husband wearing a decent shirt.
And if just take a look around, I mean literally, just take a look around by rotating around ur own body axis and u’ll see hundreds of diff tops u’ll never find even if want to search for one. Boys would be wearing t’s with catchy lines. Girls would be wearing something either plain all over or something knotty all over or something with flowers, petals or leaves everywhere. That’s about it actually. And they complain about not being able to decide what to wear… I myself have been through the transition from wearing cute shirts (as a kid of course), tantra shirts to plain tee’s.

Something I remembered just now. I went to this store with a friend who’s a girl. She was buying a top for herself and asked me to help. Here I learnt some valuable information. No matter what u suggest girls will never agree with ur opinion. Another factoid is that if the top (t-shirt) has only a small bit of sleeve then its called MEGA sleeves whereas if its longer than that its called half sleeves…wow, does geometry seem so far away!

Although I can again keep writing about this and will too in future posts. I have lot of info about ethnic wear, casual wear, party wear and more.
But what I have been thinking is that why have sane people turned to such complicated stuff?
The more that I thought about others I more I began to compare their attire changes with mine. And the answer was before me. Perhaps it is the comfortable, wear-and-go kind of flexibility that this kind of clothing offers. Why would a mother of two will prefer a wrap-and-wrap-keep-wrapping kilometer long sari when she can be more comfortable with a pair of jeans and tops. She can still select decent and sober stuff and can more easily take care of the hyperactive kids.

This may be the reason why my dad prefers shorts to lungis. He just does not have to keep unwrapping and wrapping them every 60 seconds. I myself have been changing my look every now and then with what I feel is comfortable. Long gone are the days when ‘necessity was the mother of invention’. Now its more like ‘necessity for change is the mother of invention’. Or something like that … come up with ur own motto.
So much for wear and tear. Its more of a tear and wear. Watch FTV if you don’t believe me!
As reported by Me, wearing a dumb look on his face and dull colored clothing on the other parts…Just wait till I am ready to party ;-)