Chaddi: A Case Study

Sakshi Nanda of  Between Write and Wrong needs no introduction. Barely a year old in the world of blogging, she has already won many accolades and awards for her impressive body of work. But that's not why I love reading her so much. It's her raw honesty and chutzpah that's most endearing. When you read her work, you just cannot sit back passively. Her passion is infectious. Plus, no one writes reviews like she does.

If you are that rare species that's a stranger to her blog, I suggest you read this http://www.sakshinanda.com/2014/01/laurie-i-share-your-short-cut-and-your.html , http://www.sakshinanda.com/2014/04/the-salon.html and this http://www.sakshinanda.com/2014/04/the-oranges.html

In this 'colourful' post Sakshi dares to go where no woman has gone before.....

I just remembered the ‘kaanta laga, haai laga’ girl, but I did not sing ‘aaja aaja’ after it. You see, when she pumped up many years back (c.f. Google for a screensaver), I found those eyes too grey for my liking and the blue tie slightly misplaced over the black shimmery top half-heartedly keeping her in. The other teeny blue piece of clothing around the waist I did not mind seeing though, my favourite thing in that whole video, with the pug-mark tattoo coming in a close second. Today, while I sat on a swing in the children’s park philosophizing about this and that, I saw a woman’s chaddi see-sawing gleefully. Female. Pastel pink with maroon band. Tiny flowers, I’m guessing all over but then my gaze was limited in scope. A little bow, but the beads seemed to have fallen. And so I remembered the ‘kaanta girl’ and thus this hosiery of thoughts…

Good or bad is for Ram Sene to decide, but a trend began with the price-tag-sized blue peeping in that peppy song. And it has spread just like fire in the mouth does after mixing coke with mirchi up there, a pleasant tingly fire. Chaddi showing is no longer just a conscious fashion decision but one which has come to occupy Freudian proportions of the subconscious. (Something like, biting nails when Sidhu used to come to bat. Or Kumble. Automatic!). If you don’t believe me, next time you step out and away from your own house and clothes-line, notice, no matter how sexy the sight or how silly. And even if you have to turn your head to see it, a whole 360 degrees!

On the road …

In case you, like me, drive a car which became extinct with the dinosaurs, you will most coincidentally find yourself trailing a slow-moving couple-y motorcycle, out on a ride enjoying the scorching heat on the flyover at 25 km/hour. No hurries. While the faces will be helmeted and covered like a daku in dupatta, what you will notice is a chaddi staring at you, as the pillion rider bends forward for signs and science of streamline motion. The chaddi will be waving ‘OK TATA Bye Bye’ to your modest 30 meters long salwar driving the car, reminding you of yours within which are not worth that much airing, not even on the clothes-line and certainly not by chance. Now, these chaddis may be showing accidentally but they are accident hazards too. As if by design (I saw one made of fishing net), they distract you out of your comfort zone, like the apple did Eve, and by God that nada around your belly will feel tighter you will feel ancient you will forget your gear or that the brake is the middle one and ... Swear!

Off to a safer locale …

You earn your money hardly and want to dine fine, so what if it is the same dal makhni your cook of 1200bucks/month can make. Shaan toh hai! So you wear your onion pearls coupled with a chiffon sari and tip-top into an unfit-tingly but aptly named Motee Mahal kitty where you will meet your favourite air-kissable cheeks. And, what do you see? Gosh, one husband of one woman has worn his worn out jeans with flip-flops and a Che tee to match his evening gown wife. (Compatibility dies, fashionably!) And if this wasn’t all, this black sheep’s black boxers refuse to rest in peace. Oh how they tempt-attempt to butt into everything. Is his shirt too short or pants too low? Haw, was that a belly button when he hi-fived like a college kid? Such presence the chaddi will have, his toddler will play guitar on the band and the waiter put down an extra plate for the chaddi to eat too. Such presence! And what show-offing. If only ‘Made in Thailand’ Kalvin Clein spelled right, or even Clean, perhaps the site-seeing would inspire you to drop your own onion pearls the next time, undo that sari, unhook the formals and come prepared in the next best thing to naked. Jeans and tee, I mean!

It’s almost as if there is a love epidemic between chaddis of different nationalities and shapes, different colours and races, where each says to the other, ‘Darling, I wish I could see you all the time’. And they do. Chaddis dotted with hearts can be spotted on parapets in colleges, Reebloke bands holding on to metro rails, swinging, or those with blooming flowers buying vegetables in Shani Bazaar, laying low and asking for lower price for the gatta. Seamlessly sitting, side-by-side, band-to-elastic band. Age no bar either, by the way, for under-wear can be over-worn. What else explains the exact place where the elastic gets divorced from the camel-coloured brief exposing the middle and aged line of symmetry the man makes no attempt to hide when picking his crate of beer? In socks we used to call the exposed heels potatoes. What are these windows called? Well, if you ask some of the new comers, they will say ‘Who cares, man. Pent-hee toh hai?’

Indeed! Indeed!

I think, despite all the diversity, the chaddi binds us all into a common ideology of Honesty. Like no political party does. Where what is inside is what is outside, and not just by virtue of being worn under a holy clean white dhoti in the Parliament, or standing atop a windy stage. Nothing is hidden under the table or even below the belt. It is all out. And so a new national party needs to take birth, with a chaddi as it symbol on the flags. God knows we need a change here in India, one which erases all kinds of reservations, about all things haw. Even the French have had their Revolution and they don’t even wear chaddis, they say. Look at your house electorally. You’ll have no lotus at home, elephant not at all, a sickle I doubt, one cycle maybe but your kid’s, two hands, two brooms max. But how many chaddis do you have? How many, including the one I can see? Huh?

Now, do you too see what I see? My point, I mean!