ExpertDabbler

This western attire is another sticky issue. I mean literally.
In our weather conditions, we are better off with Pyjama and Dhoti rather than blazers, ties, full-shirts, shoes, stinking socks, etc. But a closer look will convince us that it has got a more to do with economics and power and less about appropriateness. An open, economically weaker country will be influenced by the superior country in all the ways including dress. Unless there is a conscious decision to uphold our traditional way of dressing through some use of force (Read Taliban in Afghan), there is always this tilt. Lifestyle directly follows money and power. This is the bottom line.

The British introduced pants and full-shirts. Till date we find tamil middle-class grooms pose happily in their new blazers on their wedding reception, much to the chagrin of their fathers-in-law who have shelled out money for that.

Once India becomes a super power as we all dream it will one day, you will find a boom time for our traditional clothing. Even now, NRIs who are financially independent turn their attention to Indian culture much more than more than denim clad resident Indians who are busy swallowing Pizzas and Burgers.

If we take Bangalore for example. The IT Revolution has had a dramatic impact on the average Bangalorean’s lifestyle. What was once a pensioner’s paradise is now a bastion of IT and ITeS workers whose thinking is undoubtedly western. The reason being the Indian IT industry is more influenced by US economy than our own. The clients are from US and UK. So what goes for cool and trendy by their standards has a kind of bearing in the lifestyle of the people who work for them. Kerala might look like an exception in this regard but its just that change is slower there.

To sum it up, I would love to come to work in a pyjama if madichu kattina veshti et al might give room for exhibitionism by some pervert men.
It’s high time we thought about it and a consistent, decent, Indian weather friendly dress code gets evolved and standardized across the corporate world in India.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 8:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.