DRESSING UP

Very few students wore trousers those days. Some rich boys wore trousers and shirts tailored in Madras or Bombay, recounts J.VASANTHAN about the dress code of youth in his college days.



UNTIL I finished my schooling, I was always dressed in shorts and shirt.

When I completed my SSLC and got admission in a college I never thought of changing my attire.

Two days before my departure to Madurai to join the American College, a relative of ours happened to visit us. When he heard that I intended to continue wearing shorts in college, he persuaded me to try wearing a dhoti. He took me to a shop and made me buy a few single strand dhotis (naalu muzha veshti).

Changing to dhoti

After some practice I managed to `tie' the dhoti properly. But I was in constant fear that the dhoti might slip at some inopportune moment. So I wore my thick khakhi or white drill shorts underneath. And for additional safety I started wearing a belt.

When I reached the college, I found most chaps in my class wearing the same type of dhoti.

The B.A. and B.Sc students wore double strand dhotis (ettu muzham) of a fine cloth that was almost transparent. This was known as "mill veshti". Sometimes they wore this in a way that made the inner strand a little higher than the outer, a style that was the envy of the single-strand novices.

Very few students wore trousers those days. Some very rich boys wore trousers and shirts tailored in Madras or Bombay. We were very conscious of the difference in cost and style between our clothes and theirs. So were they. And so there was a becoming distance between us.

An exception to this rule was a jolly fellow called Venkatesh. He wore immaculately tailored trousers and shirts ordered from Madras, without being conscious that he was well-dressed. He got close to a group of dhotiwallahs to which I belonged. Incidentally, Venkatesh was a brilliant tennis player who reached the finals in State collegiate tennis tournament only to lose to Ramanathan Krishnan who was in Loyola College at that time.

Town Hall tailor

Venkatesh persuaded some of us to try wearing trousers. So we went to a tailor in Town Hall Road, who perhaps had never made pants before, but pretended to be an expert. The finished product was nothing like DoVenkatesh' s. The trousers were so tight that we were hardly able to sit. One pocket was so deep that we had to bend double to take anything from it; the other was so shallow that things kept in it were forever falling out.

At that time there was a young man who had a small cloth shop called `Silk House' opposite to the college. He was an extraordinarily handsome man whose charm and courtesy made his business flourish until it eventually occupied three shops in the American College Shopping Centre. He wore a long shirt over his trousers instead of tucking it in. Some of us started following this style since it helped conceal the deficiencies of our trousers.

Our professors were always dressed in suits, which from their looks, appeared to have been perhaps stitched by the same tailor in Town Hall Road. Some young lecturers wore white trousers, cream or fawn coloured jackets, red ties and brown shoes. This was almost like an uniform. One young lecturer, P.T. Chellappa, just back from the US, appeared in a single button jacket and a bow tie, and won our admiration. But after a while he went the Town Hall Road way too. Some older professors came in dhotis (pancha kacham), long coats and `angavastrams'. Some wore turbans too.

White clad gang

There was a group of senior students who dressed differently. They came from big cities and had a standard pattern of dressing. Their white trousers were worn very low on the hips and yet ended well above the ankle, revealing red socks to go with black shoes. Their white shirts were tucked in loosely, giving the impression of a very long torso and very short legs. The shirt sleeves were rolled up very high. The shirts had no packets, and so money was kept in the rolled up sleeves, which bulged sometimes with coins.

Wherever on campus you saw this white clad gang, they always stood together in a group, sometimes in a line, as if they were posing for a photograph. Sometimes they broke up to pursue their love interests. There were several coconut trees near the wicket gate towards the north of the campus. A girl would lean against a tree while one of the boys would stand stylishly placing one hand on the tree above her head, and utter what we assumed were sweet nothings for her ears only. The palm tree lent itself to this romantic pose since it was slanting and uncluttered by foliage. We cast envious side glances at them as we passed by.

Pairing under the palm

These guys also had a harmonica (mouth organ) each, which they carried in their hip pockets. In the evenings they were found in the vicinity of Lady Doak College, which was in its infancy. There was no compound wall around that college, just a fence. The harmonica toting Romeos would park themselves outside this fence and pour their souls out through their harmonicas, wrong notes and all, getting in return coquettish glances and giggles from the girls of their choice. To my knowledge at least two of these cases ended in matrimony.

One of our great desires at that time was to come back to the college for BA, wearing white trousers and stand under a palm tree. In my case, I came back after a four year break, still in dhoti though, only to find that the palm trees had vanished. The administration had cut down the trees, perhaps in an effort to curb romance. That was over fifty years ago.

The old trees may have gone, but new ones have grown. And romance goes on, as it always will.




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