January 18, 2005 - page 2



The love of bright color and intricate detail is present in people’s dress as well. Women wear cheerful reds, pinks, yellows and greens. Sarees are folded with far more cloth than is necessary to cover a body; the excess, the widest patterned border called the pallav can be left to trail behind the left shoulder, ending almost equal with the fingertips.

However, in Gujarat, the pallav is draped over the right shoulder and displayed across the front of the body. The length of the saree varies from region to region. It is usually six yards, but in Maharashtra, it is nine yards. Some women in Kerala also wear three-yard “half-sarees.”
Men, too, wear bright colors, especially in the region of Rajasthan, where turbans were very popular. They do not seem to wear patterns as often as the women, but Javid Wangnoo, a man who sold textiles in our hotel in Varanasi, said that it is perfectly acceptable for men to wear patterns, even floral patterns. Some colors, in particular dull and pale tones, are symbolic. A man wearing a white turban has lost both his parents, and a man wearing a khaki turban has lost his father, according to Vikram, our guide in Agra.
However, men wear Western clothes more often than anything else. Traditional Western cuts and patterns have been adapted to an Indian sensibility. Window displays showed shirts with wilder colors and patterns, and suits in daring cuts. We encountered a little boy at the Lotus Temple all dressed up in a corduroy suit with extra-wide lapels and silver pinstripes.