Do you know the difference between the kurta, the kameez, the salwar and the churidhar? Do you know what Indians mean by the term ‘suit’?
For a long time when I was much younger, I acted, dressed and even sounded a lot like a boy. Wearing traditional Indian clothes, was not something anybody expect from me. I loved Indian clothes, just not on myself.
This last one year though, has seen my cupboards fill up, with kurtas that I pair with skinny jeans, a host of shoes/chappals, scarves and chunky jewellery to go.
I thought I knew my Indian clothes, but a recent conversation with a Punjabi friend unearthed some personally astounding facts.
She: “Hey, so do you have a saree ready? Have you stitched your blouse?”
Me: “No.. I’m not wearing a saree.”
She: “What?! But you’ll look great! You’re tall and thin!” (>_>)
Me: “Well erm.. I should’ve planned for it earlier. There’s no time now. But I got the material. I’m going to stitch a salwar. Its purple!”
She: “A what?”
Me: “A purple salw.. “
She: “You know.. all you people keep saying ‘salwar’ and it makes me so irritated. So what now, you plan on going only half clothed, with a bare chest?”
Me: “Huh?!”
She: “Salwar!! Salwar means only the bottom part.. salwar is only the pants! Kameez is the top part, the kurta!”
Me: “Oh, umm.. Well yea, that’s what I meant.”
Geez.. You think you know something..
Here's the next detail of Indian clothing I was unaware of.
While at the tailors (yet another Punjabi) to get my kameez stitched, she asked me: “So how tight do you want your suit?”
Me: “No! I said I wanted to get a kameez stitched!”
Her: “Huh?”
Me: “I don’t want a suit stitched out of my beautiful purple raw silk! I told you, I want a kameez stitched.. “
Her: “Ji, suit is same as kameez. Salwar-suit. We say like that na?”
Me: “Ah.”
A couple of weeks later, nearing the time of the event that my friend and I had been talking about earlier, I became desperate. I needed a matching white dupatta and white pajama to go with my kameez. I rounded up 15 aunties and accumulated a total of 17 dupattas (I was supposed to get another 8). They were all supposed to bring their clothes to church that week. My event was in a few days and it was very important that they didn’t forget, because I wouldn’t be able to collect it from them otherwise.
As for the pajama, I called up my best friend and said, “Hey, so can you bring me a white churidhar tomorrow?”
When I met her after service that day, I asked her for the stuff. She took out a giant plastic cover and showed me all the dupattas she’d brought me.“Where’s the white churidhar, like I’d asked you?” “What white one? I only have this one black chuddi.”, she replied, taking out a black kurta with silver embroidery.
I was fuming by now, that she’d been so careless, and panicking over what I was going to do for the event.
Me: “No no no! I’ve seen it! You wear it with this very same black kurta of yours!”
She: “Huh?”
By now, I realized what had happened. She thought ‘churidhar’ meant ‘kurta’, and thought that I had asked her to bring something she didn’t have. But churidhar is actually another type of pajama, worn by both men and women in the subcontinent, below their kurtas.
Aaah. I couldn’t blame her. I myself didn’t know the difference, until a few days before.
So I took a deep breath, and decided to educate her on the complexities of the kurta, the kameez, the salwar and the churidhar.
Slumdog Millionaire is all the buzz now. India is visibly excited about the movie. And the media hasn’t been helpful in distracting us from it either. If anything, they’ve been fueling us further on.
In the last 2 days running up to the Oscars, India’s most popular news channel NDTV, couldn’t get enough of it. The news reader today was unable to wipe the smile of her face, verging on coy at times even. All other national and international news was suspended for these last 2 days, with 15 minute bulletins, every hour or so. Instead, they repeated the same footage over and over, which their reporter in the US had sent them.
It wasn’t just the media who was celebrating. Several images and videos of families and random people, in a state of jubilation, because of the success of the movie, were being circulated.
Sometimes I feel so disconnected, and wonder if the problem is really me.
I wasn’t celebrating the success of the movie. And when it won the 8 Oscars that it did, I wasn’t happy. I was not jumping in my seat for the movie, because it is yet another white man making money out of us. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the world thrives on disparity.
The success of the movie was not ours. Indians nothing. It was directed by a non Indian. The screen play was by a non Indian. The movie was financed too, by a foreign company. Its their creativity that has been showcased in the movie, not ours. It happened to be about Indians, set in India and used stumble-upon Indian actors in it.
And yes, thank goodness there happened to be an Indian musician and sound mixer on set, who were talented and got recognized. Of course I’m happy for Rahman, Pookutty and the kids. But what if they had not won? We here in India were celebrating the movie even before news of Rahman’s victory. We were celebrating the movie because we thought it a big deal that such an Indian flavoured movie should have made it so far in the Oscar race, when several earlier entrants by Indian directors, had failed to cut it.
I was very agitated today, with this news. I picked up a conversation with a bunch of friends, but was literally asking for a fight, and wanted to find if I was judging this situation wrongly. One of my friends said something which accurately summed up what was going on in India. He said that people in India are seeing this as a Bollywood/Indian movie making it to Hollywood, when really it is Hollywood that has come down to Bollywood. And Hollywood won, but we think Bollywood did.
Danny Boyle doesn’t ‘love’ India, and so came with the noble intention of taking an Indian story to America. He came with the sole intention of creatively challenging himself. And the movie got points not because of highly unusual concepts, amazing special effects or jaw dropping acting. Sure it had a good story with universal appeal, and hey, there’s a million bucks involved! But this movie got points for the novelty of it. I don’t think even Danny Boyle thinks he has done India a service, by drawing attention to our immense poverty. He’s just made a movie. There’s nothing wrong with what Danny Boyle did. Nothing wrong in directing a successful film, that makes a lot of money. So I have no accusations of him. My only accusation is of the Indian public, that is being so gullible and weak.
Why didn’t Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par, or a much older Malayalam movie called Kala Pani get this far? They definitely had better stories, and great acting too (presuming these are some of the criteria involved in picking Oscar winners).Were they too brown for someone's liking?
Everything about this movie was characteristically Bollywood. If a person who was unaware of the details of the movie had watched it, he would have presumed it was directed by some Chopra or Mishra. There was song and dance. There was even a train scene at VT, so dear to Indian cinema.
Any Indian could have made this movie.
It so happened that the foreigner was smart enough to make Indians act in a movie about us, but in English, so that it reached a larger audience, who were intrigued by a culture they had never been exposed to before. He mimicked us. The style is ours, the glory is his. The slums are ours, the millions are his. He is the millionaire, from our slums. The foreigners are always smart. That’s why I’m so sore.
And what’s also sad is, that Indians have made movies about the trash in our backyards before. But we failed to appreciate and encourage it. As another friend of mine said, we here in India are always quick to rush off to Switzerland to shoot, when we have so much here that we can showcase. And finally, a wise white man came along, who saw the potential in our slums, and used it to his advantage.
Yet another friend said that no matter what, she was proud because ‘India made history tonight.’ I can give the movie credit as a movie. But saying that it is of historical importance to India or has ‘put India on the international cinema map’ is naïve. I just don’t understand how this was an honour for us.
When the Namesake began to do well at international film festivals and awards, was Australia celebrating because Jacinda Barrett had played a role in it? Are we celebrating every time Kal Penn gets a role in an English flick? Also, in the hypothetical situation of an Indian making a movie about Guatemala, it would only be a cause of celebration for India, if the movie won big. However if only won of the Guatemalan actors won awards for his acting, it would not be our party. And in a role reversal, it would be the people of Guatemala who will be celebrating.
The movie wouldn’t have been as effective if a rich man had won a million bucks. It needed a poor man in squalid conditions to win it. And welcome to India!
I know I cant generalize, but a lot of the western world already thinks India is over populated, polluted and under developed. A movie like this, even though it has only depicted the truth (and I don’t have a problem that it did), has perpetuated this notion of India being Third World, in thousands of under developed minds. And we are dancing in the streets about it?!
What I want us to realize here, is that in this movie, India was only a subject.
What of those children who were recruited straight from the slums, Rubina and Azhar? They are going to grow up thinking that a white man changed their lives. And indeed he did. But when they think that the white man saved them, they’re also going to think their country abandoned them, thus perpetuating the cycle, of us coloured people constantly feeling subordinate to the ones without colour.
Why are we clamouring so? Why are we fawning for attention? Why do we need a pat on the back from the white man, to feel good about ourselves?
Some of the ideals that Gandhi built this country on, are Swadeshi: of one’s own, self sufficiency and self reliance. These ideals do not just pertain to not purchasing of foreign goods and wearing of khadi. It also urges us to take more pride in ourselves, and what we have. Nothing we are today is truly indigenous. Everything is a leftover from an earlier invader. But when are we going to have confidence to be original and take pride in our own Indian kichidi?
Laura says she’s in fourth grade. She says she is 8 years old.
Laura tells me her mother is from England. Her father is from Malaysia.
“So where do you think you’re from then?”
She feels more Malaysian than English she says. That’s because she lived in Malaysia for some time. But before that, she was born in Jordan. She had been to China also to visit her grandparents, and a few other countries. I forget where. I was too taken in by her gentle charm and quiet intelligence.
Laura seems to have been to a lot of places.
However, Laura says she can’t remember them. Because most of the places she’s visited were when she was very small.
She does understand Malay. But she doesn’t practice it. She knows 1 to 10 in Mandarin but it’s been long since she’s said it. So she wouldn’t remember it now, to tell it to me. No she doesn’t speak to her father in Malay. It’s English that she speaks in everywhere.
Laura says when she’s free, she watches TV, goes on the internet and runs around.
She used to have two kids her age before, in her compound to play with. They’ve left now. There’s just this one other girl who’s her age. But she always has studies to do.
No. Laura doesn’t mean that that girl wants to study. It’s the girl’s mother. She makes her stay home and do school work. And she has exams at school all the time. So she doesn’t come out to play when Laura calls her.
Yes. This neighbour girl also happens to be Indian.
She uses the internet for school stuff. They just finished learing about Vietnam. And now they’re studying about some English tribe. Laura says her teacher told them that they’re going to study about India soon. Yes, they study world history and geography.
Laura says she used to use Google to search for information. But her sister tells her to use “Wuki…weki…”
“Wikipedia?” .
“Yes Wikipedia! My sister told me to use Wikipedia now.” Her sister knows a lot about these things. She studies about it in school.
“Because when we use Google, we kids find these things that we don’t know and we say “Oooh! What’s that?” and then we try and find out about those things and find out about some other things and we go “what’s that now?“” Laura says, as she points in various directions to make emphasis.
Imagining the pretty thing is talking more about finding a bulk of information and being unable to deal with it, I say “That’s right. With Wikipedia you can’t go wrong. You’ll find exactly the kind of information you need for school.”
Laura says she goes out only on Fridays, weekends and holidays.
On Fridays she meets her friends from gymnastic classes. On weekends she meets her other friends. On holidays she can go anywhere.
Yes gymnastic classes. They are teaching her to do a one hand cartwheel now. Then they’ll do it with no hands.
“No hands?”
“Yes it’s like this” “It’s really hard.”
Oh and they first had to learn to do it with two hands.
Laura says she used to learn the piano. But that teacher quit. Her sister used to learn too from the same teacher. The teacher used to come home. She was a really nice teacher. So now Laura doesn’t want to learn form any other teacher.
“Well don’t stop learning just because your teacher left. There are plenty of teachers here. It’s a good thing to learn an instrument, especially the piano.”
“Oh no. I’d like to continue really. But my mother says she can’t send me for both gymnastics and piano. We can’t afford it. So I had to choose one. I like gymnastics now. I thought it would be hard but its fun.”
Laura says she has a sister and a brother who are both older than her. Her sister is 17 and her brother is 14.
She gets along with her sister. But her brother keeps blaming her for taking his stuff. Of course she doesn’t take it! It’s always under his bed. Every time her mom tells him to clean his room, he just stuffs everything under there. The two of them used to share a room. He’s moved out now, into a room they have outside their house.
Her mother calls her. She skips away to talk to her. The sun glints off her straight soft hair as it bounces. She returns with a pram. There’s a baby in it. Laura’s mother was talking to the baby’s mother while having lunch, under a large umbrella by the pool, not too far from the low wall on which the two of us were swinging our legs from. The two ladies had just decided to go inside to get some desert. They wanted Laura to keep an eye on the baby. Little Laura is responsible. She strolls the pram over to me. The baby has interesting features. I’d noticed that her mother looked South East Asian. But the baby didn’t entirely. I asked Laura about it.
Turns out the baby’s mother is Korean. Her dad’s from the middle east.
Just like Laura. An exotic mix.
Laura asks me if I wanted to know something funny about the baby. She says this baby always insists on wearing a hat indoors. And whenever she’s outside, like she was then, she wont wear her hat. Strange kid.
“I’m going to get some more food myself Laura. Do you want to come with me? I think they’re also giving gifts to the kids your age. Maybe you can come in and collect them?”
and women in the subcontinent, below their kurtas.
