FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Pradeep Lawande
Human beings wear clothes. No other living being wears them. Of the three basic needs of a person, clothing is one. The other two are food and shelter.
One can know the financial status of a person from the clothes he or she puts on. Mahatma Gandhi used to move from place to place wrapping merely a piece of cloth around his waist thereby showing to the world the poverty of Indians in British Raj. Some foreigners then ridiculed him and called him “half naked fakir”!
Clothing reminds me of a story. There was a king who was never happy. Therefore he eagerly wanted to be happy. One day a wise man told the king that the latter would be happy if he wore the shirt of a happy man. Thereafter the king personally went from place to place in search of the happy man. At last he found the happy man. But to his great surprise, the happy man never wore any shirt!
Sanskrit word for cloth is vastra. In Mahabharata, there is a very mean and shocking incident called Vastra haran; meaning an act of undressing. One of the wicked Kaurav brothers named Dushasan tried to strip Draupadi, wife of five Pandav brothers by pulling her sari. The women in tears earnestly called Lord Krishna for saving her dignity. The Lord brought about a miracle by which Draupadi’s sari did not end. Tired of pulling it, Dushasan finally gave up his evil deed. There is a proverb in Konkani which means that the coverings of heads do change along with changing times. Thus some of the head coverings include crown, coronet, pagote, turban, mundashe, rumal, bone, hat and cap. A massive Swadeshi movement took place during last century in our country. People in large numbers boycotted foreign goods. Foreign garments were set on fire. At that time Mahatmaji’s spinning wheel was a symbol of self-reliance. Numerous countrymen then spun yarns for making cloths.
Some have the avidity of changing their dresses again and again. Former PM of India Ms Indira Gandhi used to change three or four saris in a day. One journalist then expressed his surprise publicly over the madame’s above style. To that another pressman commented thus: “Not only saris, Indiraji even changes her three or four ministers in a day”! In the last fortnight, the FM of our country Nirmala Sitaraman wore two different saris within a span of just three hours. One while presenting the budget in the Lok Sabha and the other during her press conference. But as regards to changing of garments, one event in a Goan Hindu marriage would attract the attention of many. The bride and the groom garland each other. People shower sacred grains over their heads. And soon the newly weds cease to be visible on the stage. Then after a long lapse of an hour or so wherein the patience of the guests is put to test, the new couple reappears. The precious time is wasted in changing the robes of the bride and the groom.
All the different coverings on the body of a person form that person’s clothing. From last year onwards a new cover has appeared on the scene. It is called mask and it covers the mouth and nose of a human being. And all the people around the world today earnestly pray to the Almighty to liberate them from this new cover.
