(Right in the beginning, we had decided the column isn’t just gonna be about topics but also everyday issues. We had to wait till people got the hang of the column. But now that we do have a topic at hand, we did seem to agree that a University Vice Chancellor prescribing a sexist dress code banning jeans, tees and tops was ridiculous. But agreeing is against the spirit of the column. So I had to disagree… Read on!)
She Says:
Are saris more modest than jeans? Are kurtas coyer than capris?
Are women dressed in skirts actually sneaky vamps out to trick clueless young men into life of reckless lechery?
Sigh. Those poor men. If the moral police are to be believed, all they do is sit, artlessly discussing existantialism perhaps, at street corners. Then, boom. A depraved woman in (gasp) a pair of jeans and T-shirt walks past, and they have no option but to start stalking her, passing obscene comments.
Give us a break.
As any woman who’s walked any street in this city knows, you will be followed. You will be whistled at. You will be commented on. And this is irrespective of whether you’re wearing a tiny pair of shorts or a voluminous cotton sari. Irrespective of your age, or your looks, or your size.
That’s the strange thing about this city’s brand of roadside romeos: they don’t spare anyone.
So anyone who thinks that dressing all the city’s students in ‘traditional Indian wear’ will bring down the crime rate is either ridiculously optimistic, or amazingly shortsighted.
Apart from the obvious fact that karate is more likely to deter those hot-headed misguided young men than kurtas, there’s another fact that authorities in question should keep in mind.
Students are rebels. They will always be.
Sari’s can be made of light-as-air chiffon with blouses that are more itsy-bitsy than any self-respecting bikini. Kurtas can be sleeveless, backless and off shoulder. Churidhars today are slinker than the Oscar ballgowns.
Indian traditional wear can give western casual a run for its money anytime. Check out the woman in backless cholis at any wedding, and you’ll know what I mean.
And to think people are protesting denim and T-shirts!
He says:
I agree with the Vice Chancellor.
He’s absolutely right.
Let’s get rid of jeans and short tight tops.
They are not part of Indian culture nor are trousers.
Neither is English nor engineering.
Hence, the learned officials, must also introduce Sanskrit or Tamil as official language and make students dress up in costumes from ‘Asoka,’ a dress code that conforms to Indian culture.
Considering what Kareena wore (or didn’t wear), the attendance from the boys will be unprecedented.
Given that industrialisation, modernisation and subsequent globalisation is taking away from Indian culture, we need to go back to our roots and embrace agriculture.
Gandhiji said India lives in its villages, remember.
Let’s do away with the evil of engineering and technology that’s converting sacred rural pockets into urban centres.
Let’s get rid of education, it was not part of the Indian culture.
Whatever we need to know is there in the vedas, the scriptures and also recorded by our own great great-grand-fathers.
Let’s all learn to shoot with bows and arrows, walk around in loin cloth and hunt for our food.
Let’s get rid of the concept of money, it is not part of the Indian culture. It distracts.
Let’s get rid of democracy, it is not part of the Indian culture. Call the kings, let there be courtesans. Let there be war to decide who rules who. It’s part of our heritage after all.
One billion Indians arrived on this planet because of indiscipline and distraction.
So yes, let’s get rid of sex and embrace abstinence.
Adam and Eve practiced it with much discipline until the apple came in between.
So let’s get rid of all apples.
And peace will prevail, and maybe our dinosaurs will live happily ever after.
MADRAS INK. 