Mango Chutney: An Anthology of Tasteful Short Fiction. Read Online Free Page B

the railway stations of certain South Indian cities, you shall confront its
significant cross-section. A cross-section that establishes the kind of at-
tire clad in which you may enter roads, parks, malls, subsidized eateries,
schools and colleges, such that a minimum even number of eyes turn
towards you. Stitched clothes are a must. You may choose the extent
though. Front-buttoned blouses; shirts and kurtas that drape you at a
respectable distance from your body; trousers that are free-size; and such.
Unstitched additions secure you in case-specific ways. If you are a man,
your shirt collar is protected from your neck’s precipitates by a layer of
napkin. A dhoti, a lungi, a veshti, a sarong or creatures of such variety
may substitute for a pair of trousers during occasions of cultural solidar-
ity. A towel, an uttareeyam or an angavastram on your shoulder comes
1 Pseudonym
    in handy either to establish your status or to wipe off different kinds of
socially acceptable body fluids. It may also adorn your head during mo-
ments when you toil your skull with heavy baggage or an undesirable
sunbath.
    If you are a woman, you call it a saree or a duppatta. The functions of the
two are clearly delineated and their appropriate usage may save you from
sexual assault. Drape the saree only in the style that the Indian National
Congress chose for the nation’s women such that they may walk the long
anti-British marches pure, with no stains of caste, occupation, language or
region. One convenience of this style is that your blouse’s front buttons
are secured away from any man’s eye; it lets you walk upright. Running or
lifting heavy weights in case of an emergency might require significant
maneuver. The duppatta, occasionally elevated to a petite ‘stole’ or to
the thickness of a ‘shawl’, may be half as long as a saree. It nevertheless
performs a higher function. It either ruffles or straightens any medically
acceptable curves. It is mandatory to assure the onlooker of the kurtaclad woman’s moral status. “No, she is not a bra-burner, foreigner or an
alien. She shall be of no threat to the attire choices of the women of your
house or to the sexual composure of the men of your house.” Safety
pins, here, insure you against accidental infections of Skin.
    A peculiar case in the typology of attire in certain South Indian cities is
my grandfather’s shirt. I first tried it when I was 6. It might have rained
heavily on my way back home from school. I might have gotten drenched.
I might have asked him or my grandmother for a quick change of clothes.
I might have run around the school, fallen and ripped my school uni-
form. I might have arrived back home torn, bruised, crying and eagerly
awaiting some steaming idli and buttermilk. I might have just liked the
shirt’s colour. I might have asked for it. The sure part of this history is
that I arrived at that shirt at five thirty, one cloudy April evening.
    This shirt began to grow on me. For a long while, it was a matter of pride.
I walked around with a short skirt or a trouser pair that drowned in the
shirt’s length. It felt like a slice of adulthood was bestowed upon me.
I punctuated my conversations with ‘righto!’ like my grandfather did. I
rode my little bicycle straight-spined. I ran crisscrossing a row of fluores-
cent green, orange and blue pots that were queued beside the water lorry
that arrived five minutes late every morning. They seemed safe traffic-jam
to trickle through in a two-wheeler. An old basket for a helmet. I used
traffic-hand-signals as I walked through my school corridors.
Sixth standard B section was where I stopped. When I graduated into
that classroom, adulthood started to wear away. It was a norm to whisper
to your neighbours who became your best friends. You no longer wore a
pinafore or a pair of half-trousers. Your uniform was composed of attire
and accessories handpicked by your school authorities. A