When desi eeshtyle preceded haute couture

Fashion was and will always be the ultimate vehicle of self-expression. As we jostle for space and strive to carve out a niche that will differntiate us from the crowd, hairstyles, clothes and accesories provide the ideal avenue to express ones individuality.

We Berhampurias were no exception to this rule.

Our first attraction was to experiment with hairstyles. However, before one could venture into this domain there were a few battles to be fought at home. First was the obsession of parents with hair oil. It’s perceived theraupatic values included benefits like keeping the head cool and helping one to do well in maths. The second was their preference for short hairs. All bhallo pillas had to first defy these two conditions. Once you overcame these obstacles the doors of fashion world opened for you.

While girls were busy giving the small-town middle-class values anxious moments by experimenting with the Sadhna cut and Bob cut we too were spoilt for choices. Elvis Presley was a relatively unknown commodity. But with the likes of Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh and a plethora of telugu and tamil heroes, we were never short of home-spun role models.

To Dev Anand goes the credit of carrying off not one but two hairstyles. In the black and white era he had his hair rising up like a wave in Gopalpur, curving away to his right forming a beautiful arch, before cascading down as a mark of respect to the law of gavity. In Berhampuri oriya it was known as “Thuli”( the l to be pronounced as the l in pokhalo). Dev Anand re-invented his hairstyle in the late sixties with a style that was flat, well shampooed, sans oil that covered much of his forehead. Rajesh Khanna changed all this, but following his footsteps called for a much longer hair. One even had to drag them over the ears. With varying degrees of success we passionately followed these trends.

When it came to dressing, the great barrier that we had to overcome was the, “same-same syndrome”. This meant that two and in some cases three brothers would often be spotted wearing shirts and pants of same colour and print. Apart from being a handy strategy against getting lost in melas most of us saw no purpose in expressing brotherhood in this fashion. The flag of revolt against parents was unfurled and after years of struggle, by sixth standard, I finally won the right to express my individuality.

Having got the basics right we next came down to the nitty gritties. The first was to get your full pants stitched with a narrow-cut. It used to be so tight that wearing it all alone was indeed a difficult task. I am not sure what complex tasks Hercules accomplished during his lifetime but for us this was an Herculean task! After a lot of struggle we finally realised that the best way of going about wearing a narrow-cut full pant was to keep a piece of paper around your heels so that your legs could slide in with relative comfort.

Coming out of these pants too could only be accomplished as a group task and therefore what was essentially a private matter was done in full presence and active help of family members. For this you had to unbotton your pants and sit down on a chair with the legs raised. Then you had to request your brother to hold the bottom of the trousers and pull it out. When it came out you were not supposed to shout eureka but quickly cover yourself with a towel. Imagine singing Sawariya Sawariya in this position!

Early seventies saw the rush for bell-bottoms. These flares made a sudden dramatic entry. So quick was the change that for sometime even parents were at a loss of words. They were dumbstruck! This gave bell-bottoms enough time to enter our households and entrench itself firmly, leaving senior citizens wringing their hands in dismay. All they could do was to reduce it by an inch or two.

Trouble, they say, never comes alone. That was so true with bell-bottoms. For along with it came platform heels defying even barriers of sex. This was the first example of a cross-over fashion statement. Platform sandals united both the sexes of the youth brigade in its crusade against conservative mind-sets and the self-styled champions of status quo. Boys and girls sporting platform sandals as high as five inches was quite normal. Fashion had literally ensured that looking down upon us would no longer be easy, except of course for the mascots of Cavendar cigarettes. Remember? those ‘sailors’ on stilts suddenly walking across our town.

There was an explosion in the world of fabrics too. Cotton was seriously challenged with a plethora of choices. Wash‘n’wear, terry-cot, terelene, georgette, silk, chiffon, nylon mix, caurdroy, cheese cotton, gaberdine, stretchlon… there was suddenly a wide variety to choose from.

On the shirt front, again thanks to Dev Anand, the collars bore the brunt of change. High collars, stiff collars (with buchrum), long collars, dog collars, collars with pointed ends, collars with round shape, collars with piping border…. there were collars galore. Then Rajesh Khanna decided to bring in the Guru Shirt creating another revolution in the world of collars. There was also a polo-neck shirt with a zip in the back for sometime.

Boy! what fun it was when we used to go to Hafeez bhai- our family tailor whose shop was a few hundred meters ahead of Vijaya Talkies. Mom would always try to get the half pants stitched a bit longer and the shirts a wee bit bigger on the pleas of, “ Bachhe lambe ho rahe hain” and “Kapde dhone ke baad shrink honge.” I would reason, argue, sulk, quarrel, throw a tantrum, threaten to stop drinking milk and go on a fast until finally a compromise would be reached with Hafeez bhai brokering the deal!

Our generation certainly grew up knowing what fighting for every inch meant!

Today, style is more about flaunting the brand. Tag Heuer to Tommy Hilfiger, Nike to Nakshatra and the host of other logos printed on shirt pockets, on the sleeves, on the hip-pockets, sun glasses and shoes are invariably props that loudly announce “We have arrived.” The under-nourished and under-dressed models of FTV, flaunting designs that nobody with their sanity intact would wear, seem to represent a world that one finds difficult to grasp and comprehend.

But then to each his own. We have had our moments under the sun. Let our children know that the conservatives of today were once the crusaders of the sixties.

And we sure did it with eeshtyle! What say?