I had seriously considered writing about this later, but as a corollary to my previous reflections on Shopping Hopping, this topic seemed a logical continuation. From a young age, I never cared much about clothes or how I dressed. With a father who dressed neatly and a brother who developed a keen and stylish interest in fashion, it’s puzzling why this sense of dressing didn’t strike me. I can’t figure it out; it’s just the way I am—or perhaps, the way I’m made. At least it doesn’t bother my own senses or sensibilities.

Under the influence of Bhuvaji, our ground floor neighbor, my mother was meticulous about keeping our clothes clean, washed, and crisply ironed. She dressed all her children with care. But once I reached the age where I decided how to dress, my sense of style went awry.

Reflecting on it, I wonder if my early years of wearing glasses, which made me look older, perhaps a little uncouth and serious-faced, contributed to my lack of interest in dressing. One must believe that the right clothes make one look more handsome, but that was never the case with me.

I can’t recall the exact type of clothes I wore to school, but one incident remains deeply engraved in my memory. My parents had bought me some sort of upper wear that had tiny holes, resembling a net. I describe it as I remember it then, though I still don’t know what it was called or what it would be called today. I could never figure out if it was meant to be a vest or an outer garment. After wearing it to school, the lingering doubt and embarrassment of possibly wearing an undergarment as outerwear haunted me. Was I really that clueless?

When I moved to Chennai, I wore half-pants to school, but they never felt comfortable. Full pants didn’t suit me either. This “half-pant-not-liking” syndrome continues to this day. During our first visit to the USA, our sons took us to many places. For the trip, they got me two pairs of half-pants—I struggle to call them anything else. The euphoric mood of those visits overshadowed my sense of shame and dislike, and I reluctantly wore these most unsuitable pieces of clothing. At an elderly age, shorts, half-pants, and Bermudas can warp our thinking into falsely believing they make us look younger, fitter, and more fashionable. So, I wore them on a few occasions.

Coming from India, where we are accustomed to ironing our clothes with sharp creases, my shorts looked more like a freshly recruited Indian cop’s uniform with those crisp lines sticking out. Even now, when I look at some of the photographs taken while I was wearing these loose, crease-flapping outfits, I feel compelled to hide my face.

In the USA, I’ve seen many people, irrespective of age, wearing these shorts in various forms: tight in the thigh, three-fourths across the thigh, below the knees, loose, with pockets all around, sometimes with threads hanging from the hems, never ironed but always crumpled, with designs or without, and folds here and there. On them, it looks fashionable. For me, even the most basic half-pants look absurdly ugly. Do each of these variations have a separate name?

Continued in 93. Sartorial Suffocations - Part 2