My grandma had seen it all. She had seen the dressing sense of people change right in front of her eye. And she didn't like all of it, especially the young generation avoiding native/traditional dresses. Thats what made her force me into using lungi/mundu. I been using lungi/mundu right from when I was introduced to it at the age of 13 by her. As a boy I was fascinated by these dresses that I never saw in the city. And my grandma decided to tell me about how the village folk dress up.
When my grandma was a young girl, she says, that there were not tailors in any place that she knew. They never had any kind of dresses that required tailoring. Yes, exactly what you were thinking: no stitched dresses; no blouses. She recalls using just a mundu when she was a kid. Until girls where of age boys and girls either wore only mundu that too on the waist. When she became a girl she started wearing the mundu higher, covering her chest, something that people call Mulakaccha. By the time she was sixteen, as her family was a well off one, they got dresses tailored from towns. Blouses were used for the first time in her home. Girls started using blouses though older women folk still refused to budge. The poorer village folk still continued with old practices.
She now wears only set-mundu or mundum neriyathum as we call it in Malayalam. She has never worn a saree.
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| Mamta in Lungi Blouse |
After the usage of blouse became common, women folk in her home started wearing mundu and blouse at home and when they had to go out, they just put a thorthu covering their bosoms over the blouse. The poorer women or the working class women started wearing lungi and blouse. They usually didn't bother covering using a thorthu even in public.
I am a fan of this particular style of dressing. I just find women more beautiful wearing mundu/lungi , blouse and thorthu than any other dress. For me the dress represented a hard working woman. Some one who works hard inside or outside her home. I always wonder why this style disappeared. Because it so simple to wear , it is comfortable and easy to manage. I say so because my grandma said so to me. Not just her, few of my female friends too said so.
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| Shari in Lungi Blouse |
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| Model in Lungi Blouse |
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| Model in Lungi Blouse |
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| Lakshmi Gopalaswami in Lungi Blouse |
Once we had a skit in our school and few girls were supposed to be dresses in lungi, blouse and thorthu for it. They did feel awkward , I saw that from their initial hesitation to wear it and to move around wearing it. But later on they felt confident and easy in those dresses. After the initial shyness, soon they were found wearing it not just in the practice hall but in the corridors and canteen during the breaks. I enjoyed watching them, it is not too often that you find beautiful 17 year old girls walking around in lungi, blouse and thorthu. I had to ask them how they felt, the whole experience of stepping into a different era of dressing. They all agreed that they were shy about wearing this and also thought the dress will be uncomfortable. But after 10 to 15 minutes in the dress, they got the hang of the dress and instinctively knew how to manage the lungi and how to keep the thorthu properly hanging on their shoulders.
After spending around a week preparing for the skit in these dress, walking around the whole campus in that dress, one of them even went home from school in lungi and blouse , last two days of practice. So it wasn't about feeling uncomfortable in the dress, when properly worn , it is more like set-mundu but with shorted shawl, and doesn't expose the body. But will they continue to use it? I asked them this and the reply was a no; as expected.
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| Model in Lungi Blouse |
And the reason:
Society no longer accepts this as a modest dress. Movies these days shows this as the dress worn by village sluts and prostitutes.
So it is not a question of feeling uncomfortable or exposed in it, nor it is of the dress being hard to manage(move around and work: free). It comes down to the image that the society has now associated with the dress. Provided this image is removed, those friends of mine said that they wouldn't mind wearing it in public or at home. It would be just like any other dress they have.
Of course it is not churidhar or salwar kameez, nor is it like a jeans and T-shirt. But it is the dress that the malayalee girls wore. It is a thousand times better than a nightie. If a lady can walk around in nightie outside her home even in a city, then lungi and blouse is much more than acceptable.
So will it make a come back? Not necessarily like the olden days...but will it ever be accepted as a normal dress that doesn't make people stare at you? What I think is that if the girls decide to wear it at home or in public, people will start accepting it.
This is RM signing off.
PS: The images I have posted here shows women in lungi/mundu, blouse and thorthu (as appeared in movies or other videos). All of them have worn it properly and you can notice that there is nothing indecent about the attire. Any dress can look slutty if it is worn so. Lungi-blouse is a victim of a wrong image associated with it.
