snippets from my life: Kerala Part 3: The Mundu Country

The famous Gandhian loincloth, the dhoti, worn by men in rural North India has a distant cousin, the ‘Mundu’ in Kerala. Dhoti is slowly disappearing from the urban Indian landscape. If you see the earlier Hindi films you will see top stars like Dilip Kumar wearing dhotis but today with some education and urbanization, the north Indian male shifts very quickly to trousers and jeans… so the dhoti remains alive only in the villages. Pyjama ,Kurta is still quite in vogue in urban North India which is worn as a sleeping dress or even as an evening dress for special occasions but the dhoti has mostly gone missing in action. In the east, however, in Bengal you can still see the Bengali bhadralok endorsing it.

Well, what is it…just a piece of cloth really which is tied around the waist in varying styles

A confession- in several of Habib Tanvir’s plays I have to wear a dhoti and it really gets me so stressed that I start dressing up almost an hour in advance than I usually do because I have to find a dhoti specialist from one of the rural actors in the troupe. Thankfully, there are quite a few of those in the troupe. I think why dhoti bit the dust was because it has a slightly complicated process to wear and you have to practice to get it right. Nothing like that in the case of the ‘Mundu’, the distant cousin of the dhoti which still is quite alive in both the urban and rural Kerala- and I guess it is the most convenient thing to wear in the land where it really pours during the monsoons.

So you can wear the mundu full length on formal occassions

Or just like that...

In the market... at a shop...queuing up...at the train station...

Smoking at the train station...well this one could be reprimanded...

And then there are the coloured ones...

Or short ones...almost as if the intention is to show off the legs...

There are mundus which are coloured...my friend tells me they are more towards the 'working class' mundus...so the mundus have a class divide too...the white ones are more for the elite...but then some of the colours are beautiful...

Mundus respond to other preferences too...some like it tight...but some may prefer it loose...

Well this one is a right leaning Mundu...you get to know of the character of the man too by the way he ties his mundu...he likes to be neat...

Mundus are convenient...they can be readjusted...used to wipe your hands...or simply just occupy them...I am told that sometimes when people get angry...they just open the mundus...an extreme expression of the anger, wouldn't you say...but savour some of the hand held mundus...

both hands held

readjusting on the move

don't worry , not an angry mundu...just getting readjusted

wish could capture the full readjustment process in pictures...but here this one is just getting converted from a long full size one to a smaller size one...and ......these are getting readjusted on the move...you see this a lot on Kerala roads and markets...so the mundu is an amazing dress....you can keep readjusting it based on your current needs...

this formal mundu is changing itself into an informal one...

aah and the ones below are just hand held for the sake of it...

one size does not fit all...nor does it work all the times...there are mundus tied full length...short...and there are the ones somewhere in between...

Finally there are the ritual mundus...'muthuppans' , indigenous godmen...or rather messengers of gods themselves...in urban kerala...reversing the class and caste divide...wear dresses which are colourful...ritualistic...ornamented...obviously the mundus they wear will be colourful too....