Monday, February 05, 2007

Now in blazing Techicolor!

Finally, I can grasp what every foreign tourist from the Americas and Europe means when they exclaim how colourful India is. Most of the times, I assumed they were talking about the colour of the mud and the dust, or the various shades of cowdung encountered on the roads.

Recently, my Brother and my S.I.L visited the Kila Raipur rural Olympics, which are held every year around this time in an attempt to vent and channel some of that energy that Punjabis seem to hold in excess. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, I was able to see the many fine pictures taken. One particular shot of the audience dressed in their finest carnival wear, struck me as the reason why this sentiment runs so high in most people not born in the lifelong Mela that is India.

Whenever I happen to stroll through a shopping mall, I always see the same women's and men's clothiers, such as Ann Taylor, Petite Sophisticate, Brooks Brothers and their ilk. And without fail, they are always stocked with merchandise in colours such as-Puke tan, faeces brown, algae green, stool sepia, scum grey, and their variations as well as the standard-issue white and black.
I swear, I once chanced upon a store that seemed to be carrying all their stuff in only one colour, besides the regular black and white. It looked as if the Supreme Soviet had suddenly decreed that the People's Textile mills nos. 234 to 567 will produce material only in Standard colour No. 17.

Agreed, the clothes were of excellent design and of an incredible fit, but come on. How can you sell every woman a skirt of the same colour? It's impossible. Women need clothes that are unique, personal and to their taste, in a way that the dress becomes an extension of their personality. How can something so drab, like the universal bark-coloured trouser reflect the bewildering difference of nature between each woman's personality? Most men would be understandably content to dress in denim or khaki, but I think it's criminal to constrain women's fashion with such horrible colours in spite of the great design.

So when you are born in a world of mud-coloured textiles, I would expect nothing less than absolute shock when these guys see the insane variety of colours I used to take for granted.

Music - Prince/the artist formerly known as Prince - Pussy Control, DaRude - Rush

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