Indian Clothing 101

We’ve found a little more upscale market close to us that is where Indians shop and eat out—Green Park. It’s the middle ground between scrubbed up western places and tiny local markets with very limited selections—excellent fruit and veg, several grocery places, eye glass stores, chemist, and lots of other shops one needs on a daily basis, and a good south Indian restaurant. And we didn’t seem too out of place either—not the usual staring that we’ve gotten in other markets. It seemed slightly cleaner…but best of all you can get jalebi on the street—a popular sugary fried dessert.

We went with another fellow, our across the hall neighbor and Tamil historian, Doud (an American prof, teaching in London (SOAS), and born in India). Over paneer dosas he schooled us the various Indian clothing—lungi, korta, salwaar kameez, dhoti, sari, pijama—it’s quite a science and if you’re Indian you can tell which part of India a person is from by the items that a person wears, as well as how they wear them. For example, there are different ways to tie saris, and I think lungis too, depending on region/city. As it heats up it sounds like I will have to get light cotton salwaar kameez, since almost every item of my hot weather clothing is too tight or too short. I didn’t realize I was such a floozy! He even discouraged Norbert from wearing shorts. Yicks we are really worried about the heat to come.

This is a picture of a typical, if such a think exists, street scene in Delhi.