Ageist Dress Codes!

 “Mummy! You can’t seriously wear that saree. It’s the third time this week. And what’s more, it looks like one of Napoleon’s shirts!” My husband chimed in, “Don’t your students object? That’s such an eyesore!”

  The offending garment was a six-yard polyester saree, perfectly decent, opaque, fuchsia pink in colour, with big white flowers. It draped me beautifully, was drip-dry, and was easy to pin in place and wear. Besides, I had a nice blouse for it. So what was their problem?

  Napoleon was one of my daughter’s admirers when she was in plus two. He presented her with a flower, which she threw into the nearest dustbin. Reason? “He wears a shirt that looks like Mummy’s fuchsia pink saree!” G-R-O-S-S!

  Now this selfsame long-legged sixteen-year-old child traipsed around the house, upstairs and downstairs in little pink shorts with pictures of apples and strawberries, or of kittens and rabbits. The five-year-old daughter of the maid next door peered over the garden wall and asked her, “Neevu chaddinalli odaadtha iddheera? (Are you running about in a chaddi?”). Naanu hange maadthre nam Amma baithaare (My mother will scold me) hee, hee, hee”. My daughter giggled along with that child. She always had a funny bone and could laugh at herself! But she continued gadding about in those shorts.

  In Britain in the eighties, I stubbornly wore a saree at all times. My bindi, nose ring, and saree excited curiosity and comments. When asked about the bindi. I would say, "This is supposed to be Shiva the Destroyer's third eye”. The nurses in the children's hospital in Liverpool wanted me to show them my nose ring. They were fascinated by the screw clasp, so delicate and yet so strong! They asked me, "How come you are allowed to show your waist?" I would answer, "How come you show your legs? It’s just a difference in our cultures”. But all this sparring was friendly. I did not feel any whiff of criticism or racism.

  Now Mark Twain famously said, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” I remember laughing for days when my mother read out “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to me when I was at the very perspicacious age of five years. Nobody goes about “naked”. Clothes are to us as fur is to animals. Of course, animals with beautiful fur rivet our eyes and end up being hunted, caged, or killed. So, yes, we need clothes

·        to cover us;

·        to protect modesty;

·        to protect from the cold, the heat, or briars; and

·        to state our purpose (cycling, walking, playing tennis, swimming, or going to school or work).

  When clothes satisfy these four basic functions, is there any need to criticize? I am not advocating wearing shabby or drab clothes at all times. But there is much more to a person than just clothes! Princess Diana was a fashion icon, and Duchess Kate is not. Yet the latter comes across as a person with a great deal of beauty and taste. Gilding the lily did not work in Diana’s case.

  I am something of a feminist - in fact, I am an individualist! Hence, there is this very strong impulse in me to just be who I am, with no frills and fancies. I haven’t forgotten that, when my husband and I first met, he told me, "You are the only girl I have met, who does not wear makeup". He has forgotten that he once liked this quality in me: I haven’t! Now he wants me to don the war paint to look younger! But thinks his white hair “looks distinguished”!

  Albert Einstein says, “If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.” 

In other words, don’t judge books by their covers!