Sartorial quirkiness

Right in The Middle

I had once noticed an old lady struggling to remove the shirt of her grandson before entering a temple. The temple stipulated that male devotees remove their shirts before entering it. The grandmother did not notice the press button on the child’s shirt and tried to pull it off. The shirt was stuck at the neck of the child. Onlookers stepped forward and unbuttoned the shirt to the relief of the child and the old lady. What harm a kid wearing a shirt would cause to the purity of the temple was a million dollar question.

Dress code in temples of Kerala is a puzzling experience. Most temples stipulate that men wear a Dhoti, but upper garments are forbidden. In some temples, one can see men removing the shirt from their right sleeve and entering the temple with half the shirt dangling from their left shoulder. At Sabarimala, devotees are allowed to wear black dhotis and black shirts.

What ladies can wear in some temples of Kerala is known only to gods. Recently, we went to Guruvayur. My wife wore a saree and entered the main temple and noticed that many ladies were wearing salwar kameez. Next day, she put on Kurti, because it was more comfortable to wade through the stampeding crowd. After darshan at the main temple, we went to two more temples in the same town. At one temple, security personnel stopped my wife saying women in kurtis are prohibited from entering the temple. She waited outside as her shirtless husband went in. At yet another temple, the wife was asked to wear a coloured dhoti on top of the Kurti before entering. The coloured dhotis were made available at the entrance for a fee. There was no explanation for the different dress codes followed in different temples in one town.

Sometime ago, some men were denied admission to a club in Chennai, because they were attired in Dhotis. ‘No Dhoti on the dance floor’, said a Delhi club dress code. Educational institutions and uniformed services have their own dress codes. It is unthinkable to imagine a policeman without his uniform to command respect from anybody, leave alone fear from criminals.

Two of my mischievous friends went to a discotheque clad in Dhotis. A bouncer refused them entry. The impish men went out, removed their Dhotis and kept them in their vehicle. They re-entered in their striped knee-length underwear. This time the ushers mistook the attire for bermudas or boxers and let them in. The two had a hearty laugh later, narrating the incident to their pals.