A random rant on the lehenga choli and sartorial stereotypes by a lehenga-less old lass.
Image credit: Painting by artist Navneet Parikh via Pinterest
My gym in Kochi – a city I moved to about ten months ago – recently hosted a dandiya event. Now, I’ll be honest. I have only ever seen these events in Bollywood movies. I was never invited to a dandiya event before and hence, had never attended one. So, when I first saw the invite, I was filled with delight…and dread. Delight because it was a chance to try something new. Dread because I knew I didn’t have the sartorial accoutrement for the dance, i.e. lehenga choli AKA ghagra choli AKA chaniya choli (your choice of name would depend on your place of origin).
But then, I ended up not going after all. I didn’t go because I don’t own a lehenga choli. (I also didn’t go because my gym mates are organised into invisible and exclusive little clubs, entry to which is contingent upon speaking Malayalam – which, incidentally, I don’t).
And thank God I didn’t. When photos of the event were shared on the gym WhatsApp group, EVERY woman had turned up in a lehenga choli. It was like the lehenga choli was such an easy-breezy outfit, all anyone had to do was stick a hand inside their wardrobe and… hey presto! There it was, with its swish and swirl. In a fraction of a second. The blink of an eye. Like an act of conjuring.
Those who didn’t know the magic could stay out in the cold. And so I did.
The ‘Heroine’s’ Vaunted Outfit
I can’t recall which movie or female actor made us want to covet the lehenga choli, catapulting it to an almost lofty status. Obviously, I am not talking about women from parts of the country who have always traditionally donned the lehenga choli – such as Rajasthan or Gujarat. I am talking about women from the southern or eastern parts of the country having become so enamoured of the outfit nowadays that they break with tradition and wear it on their engagement or wedding day (even if everything else, from kundli match to groom with a stable IT job remains bang on tradition).
Was it Aishwarya Rai – in a role as my namesake – in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam in the foot-tapping ‘Dholi Taaro Dhol Baaje’? Or perhaps in ‘Aankhon ki Gustakhiyan’ from the same movie? Or, could it have been Kareena Kapoor in a peachy lehenga choli with a peachy smile as the dim-witted Poo in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham?
I don’t know who marked it on their fashion calendar, if such a thing exists. I didn’t.
All I know is that be it on Instagram or TikTok, every fashionista worth her salt today seems to have posed in a lehenga choli at least once.
Countless Bollywood actresses have sported one and flashed a coquettish smile at the delighted paparazzi, all shimmer and sparkle, feminine mystique wrapped in metres of ethnic extravagance.
Its ubiquity on social media has made the lehenga choli synonymous with Indian femininity. If you are an Indian trans woman today, for instance, preening in a lehenga choli seems almost a rite of passage.
Where to Wear it?
Good question, right?
The lack of a lehenga choli got me thinking. Was it just me who had no place to go (except that stray invite to a gym dandiya event) and hence no reason to invest in a lehenga choli?
I texted an Uttarakhandi friend asking if she owned one and when she had worn it last. At her wedding nearly a decade ago, she told me. Not since then.
‘It doesn’t have much utility’, she texted back. There weren’t many places you could wear it to.
I couldn’t agree more.
For an outfit whose starting price (at least for the fancier sets) hovers around India’s average monthly salary, the lehenga choli offers dismally low returns on investment. You can’t even wear it to a formal dinner (unless you don’t mind the sly sniggers).
So, why the fuss?
Its ubiquity on social media has made the lehenga choli synonymous with Indian femininity. If you are an Indian trans woman today, for instance, preening in a lehenga choli seems almost a rite of passage.
The Code’s a Load
Why are you making such a hullabaloo for nothing, Miss Sen, you might ask. You could just have worn your salwar kameez to the dandiya event, been the odd one out for an hour or so, and that would have been that.
Well, I just couldn’t muster the courage to. And that’s why I am writing this article. Because of dandiya’s tacit but watertight connection with lehenga cholis, standing as the odd one out in an all-lehenga choli-wearing gathering was just something I couldn’t get myself to do. It is a code, just not written down anywhere.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that arsonists could be identified by their clothes during the anti-CAA protests in 2019, it wasn’t just a dog whistle he was blowing. He was underlining that deep-seated, visceral, invisible connection between clothes and what they ostensibly say about belonging and the people wearing them.
The suit and tie are associated with the elite, respectability and ‘civilisation’.
The ‘kings’ of the Gulf states are usually associated with the traditional thobe.
Torn jeans and tattoos are associated with rebellion and counterculture.
The salwar kameez and dupatta is associated with ‘good girls’ in south Asia.
Fishnet stockings are associated with slutty girls.
Saffron robes are associated with renunciation and spiritual authority in India.
Never mind that President Trump (and much of the western leadership) is always dressed in a tie-suit. Yet he shamelessly bombed little girls in Iran, and continues enabling a genocide in occupied Palestine. Every day. Years on end.
Never mind that the heads of the Arab family dictatorships are as aligned with the West as are oxpeckers with lions.
Never mind that youngsters wearing ripped jeans and tattoos in India could be caste Hindus, pumped up on years of Hindutva fodder.
Never mind that the girl in salwar kameez depot could be promiscuous and the one in fishnet stockings just bohemian.
And never mind that the perennially saffron-clad chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is as far from renunciation as is Bharat from becoming Swachh Bharat.
One’s Habit May be a Matter of Habit
Moreover, many people continue wearing the clothes they’ve always worn because they simply don’t want to give up dressing in a particular way. Because dressing otherwise is odd for them. A bit like how I conformed by choosing not to stand out in a salwar kameez in a lehenga-wearing crowd.
Of course, deviating from convention can be rewarding too. Judge Andrew Napolitano, referring to ex-al-Qaeda terrorist and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, remarked, ‘Now it’s in US interest to get him a Brooks Brothers suit and to trim his beard and give him a visa card.’
And never mind that the perennially saffron-clad chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is as far from renunciation as is Bharat from becoming Swachh Bharat.
In other words, clothes are often less about self-expression than the comfort of conformity. And they don’t always define the people wearing them in the way our South Asian brains have been wired to understand.
P.S.: I am not against the lehenga choli. I might just invest in one in the near future. Not necessarily for a dandiya event though. Maybe I’ll just break the rule and wear it to a family dinner, sniggers and smirks notwithstanding.
AI-generated image for western readers who still haven’t googled what a lehenga choli is.
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