Indian Clothing 101

Women in both Bangladesh and India are discouraged from showing too much skin or wear tight dresses that cling to their bodies, showing the shape of their breasts and buttocks.

They may show their bare belly when wearing a sari and some skin on their arms with short-sleeved kameez or sari blouse, but never the shoulders. Their lower garments must also cover their ankles. Thus, most of them wear high-heeled sandals so as not to trip over their long shalwar or sari.

Some women, especially from very traditional and religious Muslim families, mostly in the villages and a few in the cities, wear the very loose and very long burka over their shalwar kameez or sari.

The black burka is known around the world as the trademark clothing of Muslim women, sometimes covering their whole face, other times showing only their eyes. It is a very convenient disguise for someone not wanting to be noticed, especially in places where almost half the population is wearing it. Thus, it gained prominence when the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden allegedly escaped capture by disguising himself in burka.

I was told that most of the people in India and Bangladesh don’t have or wear undergarments. The men have no boxer shorts or briefs under their pants or lunggi and the women seldom wear bra and panty under their blouse and sari or kameez.

I initially couldn’t imagine not wearing undergarments. But having experienced summer in Bangladesh, I now find this practice very convenient for everyone and practical too. Summers are so hot and humid, so the lesser the clothes, the better. In fact, many foreigners from whatever country in Asia, Europe, North America or Africa, wear lunggi in their flats, just as “westernized” Bangladeshis wear pants to their offices or schools.

The lunggi is equal opportunity clothing for men. I was told that all Bangladeshi men, from whatever economic status wear lunggi at their homes. It doesn’t matter whether they are professionals who wear double-breasted suits to the office, students who wear the school uniforms, or street workers who wear the lunggi to their work. When they are at home, they all wear lunggi.

Besides, the lunggi makes it easier for men to pee, especially since they pee squatting, whether in squat toilets indoors or in the sewers or rivers outside.

But whatever they are wearing, their clothes are always a mixture of designs and colors. I have never seen a single person in another place, much less a whole population of people wearing as many colors and prints in a single set of clothes as daily attire.

Women may have straight or angled designs on one garment and, flowing, rounded or curved prints on its pair, all in two to five different colors. The men have no qualms wearing flower-printed or light-colored shirts or lunggi that are considered too feminine in the western culture.

Imagine this: a woman in orange shalwar, with some small purple and green triangle prints and trims, paired with a purple kameez with green or orange stripes and a green orna with orange and purple circles. Or this: yellow shalwar with red stripes, orange kameez with yellow flowers and a red orna that has orange, red and yellow squares.

Then imagine multiplying this woman and the colors and prints of her clothing into thousands that you meet everyday in the streets of India. Then you’ll only have the tip of a picture of India.