Skip to main content

Uncomfortable People




It’s when I went to buy some dress for the month-long holiday I’m planning that I realised the stupidity of what’s called fashion.  I couldn’t get a single readymade pair of trousers which made me feel comfortable.  Fashion has got rid of pleats from trousers altogether.  Get into the showrooms of Pantaloons or Raymond or even my usual, humble Big Bazaar and you will realise how uncomfortable they want us to feel in the trousers they are offering. 

I asked the Pantaloons boy whether they had any pair of trousers with pleats.  And which were fairly loose.  He looked at me as if I was some creature descended from another planet.  I explained to him that pleats were invented in order to make the wearer feel comfortable around the loins with a lot of air circulation.  Thank my stars, he didn’t ask me what my profession was.  Instead he asked me whether I had heard of anything called Payback cards.  He said he could offer me one which would entitle me to some reward points for shopping with them.  When I tried to fish out my Payback card from among my other similar cards including the driving license, he understood that I was a damn fool who didn’t deserve more attention from a dealer in wares. 

I ventured to tell him, however, what a psychiatrist told us, teachers of a public school, in a workshop.  “I asked my teenage daughter who was wearing a tight T-shirt and even tighter Jeans whether she was feeling comfortable in that dress.  She said, ‘What’s comfort got to do with it?  It’s the dress code for today, decided by friends.’”  I told the Pantaloons boy that I had passed the age for dress codes and peer pressure and wanted to feel comfortable wearing whatever dress I wore.  And I love loose clothes for summer.  Any season, for that matter.

“What’s comfort beyond the fashion of the time?” he asked me.  Not in the same words, of course. 

I couldn’t get a single pair of trousers of my choice from any of the stylish, fashionable, branded outlets.  So I got them stitched. 

There are a few old-fashioned businessmen still selling readymade shirts which are comfortable to wear.  Most sell shirts which look like straitjackets.  And most youngsters wear them.  Any wonder why we find around us so many people who are uncomfortable with themselves?






Comments

  1. Good that you are still finding tailors that stitch trousers. Their tribe too is going to vanish soon I say.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, Indrani. It isn't easy to find good tailors. Last winter one tailor made a straitjacket of the coat I had ordered. Even tailors take it for granted that everybody is interested in the latest style.

      Delete
  2. I can absolutely understand this whole fiasco...I suffer from the same fate...Just because I am a female, I am always expected to wear form-fitting kurtis and tops. So I compromise. I wear clothes as huge as tents when I want to feel comfortable and wear that other horrible stuff when my family wants to display me during social occassion :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, it becomes worse in the case of women. I have seen my wife struggling to choose her dress and often settling to get them tailored.

      Delete
  3. quite a lovely post (I would also add a bit funny). I can't say i m away from fashion I wish I could. I am decently concerned with fashion if I may permit myself to say so. But then what you have written is actually recently shown in Modern family (if you watch it) where Gloria's husband buys her large flat comfortable shoes and begins to see how nice she suddenly becomes in behavior. And he comments that could it be possible that your high heeled shoes have made you a bad person? Of course it was all in humour but somewhere it struck me as wonderfully true. I guess just to add further to your point of having uncomfortable people around :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richa, since you mentioned shoes, I must say it's difficult to get a decent pair of them these days. You have all sorts of odd looking shapes, pointed and long and ...

      Delete
    2. its so true richa..i saw that episode too and unfortunately have to agree that fashion isnt always comfortable :(
      this post is a bit funny and ofcourse lovable and so true.

      Delete
  4. To the present generation, X or Y, going with time is more important than being comfortable with their outfits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can understand peer pressure and also fashion consciousness. What I fail to understand is why anyone should choose to wear uncomfortable clothes.

      Delete
  5. smiles smiles smiles .. whatelse can you expect from me when narrate reality so humorously.. :)
    So true this is .. I have noticed my father almost hating their trouser collections and unlike you he is the one who gives them suggestions and asks them for dates when pleats wala trousers a little baggy ... would be available !! :D
    Poor pantaloon guys of 2013 who have compromised comfort long back for fashion .. they have them rarely in stock .. and if at all they have .. it has got a tight bottom ! :D
    Tailor-Made is the only option for gentlemen looking for comfort in 2013 and beyond !! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are neglecting the grown up generation altogether, you see :)

      Delete
  6. ha ha ha! At some point i do agree with you! Tod10ay all the brands have gone nuts over fashion and have forgotten that they are also people in this world who prefer comfort to fashion! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Invariably, Bushra, all of them are cranky - and they think people like me are cranky :)

      Delete
  7. Sir, what should I say now.... I think fashion has taken over comfort... its a new tribe which likes to look stylish in the process they give up on comfort.. fashion house are very influence by the western culture sadly....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Funnily, I should say, friend. Have you noticed the new trousers which reveal half of the wearer's bums?

      Delete
  8. I can understand your predicament because of the varied thoughts that come to my mind when I go trouser or jeans hunting for my husband...and my husband is quite vocal about his thoughts and I end up having a cranky husband sans the trouser/jeans.

    Yes, stitching is the best option if you are able to find a tailor. I think people resort to buying and wearing whatever all these mega shops offer just to avoid the hazzle of finding a good tailor which gives you what you want. One salwar kurta can cause you to go five times to the tailor and eventually you decide to wear that ill fitting ready made kurta.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Very recently my daddy was embroiled in a similar argument at an apparel store. You have very rightly pointed out that clothes few years back, were stitched keeping comfort as the first priority and longevity of the fabric as second. You may not find many choices then, but atleast there was no breaking head in the name of fashion. My dad now prefers to get his shirts and trousers stitched with tailors. Although the tailor keeps poking his nose, by saying wat my dad wants is no more in fashion, but dad pays him deaf ears. For him his comfort is his priority.

    I love reading you blog. This one is great like always.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I pity all the people like your dad and me who have to go finding a good tailor. I'm lucky I found one.

      Thanks for the good word.

      Delete
  10. There was a time when I found almost all jeans in shops that were low waist. Thankfully that has passed. But I do agree with your sentiment! Give me comfortable clothes any day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Low waist is still in fashion in my school, Mridula. I must tell my boys now that it's out of fashion. :)

      Delete
  11. Ha ha Tomichan .. but I have another issue .. whatever fits my budget, I don't like it and what I like is most of the time are way to expensive to buy .. eventually I end up not getting anything :(

    Maybe I have expensive taste :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sangeeta, Even when I was ready to pay (in times of emergency) I didn't get what i wanted. Maybe I have peculiar tastes :)

      Delete
  12. Who are you to criticize about not getting proper size clothes?!!!! Remember, I was all of 5' 2" tall, 28" waist and in the US only horse jockeys are of that size, at whatever age! I could not afford custom-made clothes and ready-made apparel were not available for my size. So what did I do? Don't ask!

    You get no sympathy from me :)

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What about the discomfort provided by the fashion? That's my focus, Raghuram. Availability of my choice is a secondary thing.

      Delete
  13. even i too fail to understand why they are ignoring the pleats in trousers- don't they wear the trousers they make themselves and realize how important the pleats are?!

    ReplyDelete
  14. such a nice read. sometime back I went with my father for shopping and i was bringing him all these jeans to try and he was just looking at me hoping me to understand that he wont be comfortable wearing any of those. now i understand his situation better. he just wanted to be comfortable.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...

Dharma and Destiny

  Illustration by Copilot Designer Unwavering adherence to dharma causes much suffering in the Ramayana . Dharma can mean duty, righteousness, and moral order. There are many characters in the Ramayana who stick to their dharma as best as they can and cause much pain to themselves as well as others. Dasharatha sees it as his duty as a ruler (raja-dharma) to uphold truth and justice and hence has to fulfil the promise he made to Kaikeyi and send Rama into exile in spite of the anguish it causes him and many others. Rama accepts the order following his dharma as an obedient son. Sita follows her dharma as a wife and enters the forest along with her husband. The brotherly dharma of Lakshmana makes him leave his own wife and escort Rama and Sita. It’s all not that simple, however. Which dharma makes Rama suspect Sita’s purity, later in Lanka? Which dharma makes him succumb to a societal expectation instead of upholding his personal integrity, still later in Ayodhya? “You were car...