The dress ensemble of
the Hindus of the district is a blending of different items of dress
shared in common with people all over India. At present many of the
articles of dress wear patronized particularly by the educated young
urbanited are items after Europeans style. However, many items of
dress current among the people in generals could be said to have been
indigenously evolved.
The sewn garment for
the baby is balut consisting of a triangular piece of cloth
tied round its waist so as to cover the buttocks and the front. This
is followed by a topare which is a baby cap covering the ears,
and kunci which is a cap and frock sewn together. Angni is
a general term indicating a sewn garment for the upper body is which
could be included jhabale (frock), bandi or peti (jacket)
worn by the child. When the child grows two or three years old, a
round or a folded cap for the head, sadara, or pairan, (shirt)
for the upper part, caddi or short pants for the lower part are
sewn for the use of boys, and parakar (petticoat), caddi (panties),
polka (bodies) and jhaga (frock) are sewn for the use of
girls.
The ordinary dress of
the upper class Hindus for a man indoors is a dhotar (waistcloth) and
a sadara or a pairan (shirt). Out of doors it consists
of : First, a head-dress which is a folded cap of cotton, sild or
woolen fabric, or a freshly folded turban known as rumal, patka or
pheta. The pre-formed turban known as pagadi is now rarely
to be seen. Second, a waistcoat or jacket known as bandi which
may be used over a shirt or a sadara. Third, a coat, a short
one after European fashion or a long one (dagla) after what is
known as ' Parsee-fashion' Fourth, a shoulder-cloth or uparne specially
woven or of a light muslin cloth about three yards long by a yard
broad, thrown round the shoulders. The wear of uparne has gone
out of vogue mostly among the urbanites. Fifth, a waistcloth or dhotar
of fine cotton cloth with borders on both the sides and about 50
inches wide and four or four and a half yards long. Once Nagpur
hand-made dhoti were famous for their durability. The Maratha
Brahmans known to be very particular about the securing of their dhoti
which always had to have five tucks, three into the waistband at
the two sides and in front, while the loose end were tucked in front
and behind. Sixth, country-made joda or shoes. In towns boots
and shoes made in the European fashion at Kanpur and other centers
have now been generally adopted and with these socks are worn, but
their use is confined to small number of highly paid Government
servants, pleaders and young merchants. For the use of the common
people sandals and cappals of various patters are current. Till
recently only prostitutes wore shoes in public, and no respectable
woman would dare to do so but could use sandals with impunity.
A well-to-do educated
urbanite may use all the items of western dress ensemble including the
'bush-shirt' and 'bush coat' of recent origin. Indoors he may be found
using a striped pyjama and a half-shirt or a pairan. His
outdoor dress various between three types : (1)a lenga (loose
trousers or slacks) and a long shirt of the Nehru type or a
pair of short pants and a shirt, the flaps of the shirt either being
allowed to hang loose on the shorts or tucked inside them. (2) A pair
of trousers in combination with a shirt or a half-shirt, a bush-coat
or a bush-shirt; the sleeves of the shirt may be rolled in a band
above the elbow. (3) A full western suit including trousers, shirt,
perhaps a waist-coat and a necktie. For ceremonial occasions he may
prefer to dress after Indian style in a spacious looking long coat,
called ackan, and cudidara pyjama or survar slightly
gathered at the ankles-end with bracelet-like horizontal folds. A
folded woolen or a silk cap and cadhav or a pump-shoes perfects
the ensemble. Among the urbanite young men the use of dhotar is
practically getting extinct; it is in some evidence among the
middle-aged. The sendhi or scalp-lock is long discarded and
they cut their hair short in imitation of the European. Shoes and
boots they even keep on indoors and many times prefer to walk
bare-headed displaying a well-groomed hair-crop.
The dress of the
ordinary cultivator is most common-place and consists only of a dhotar
(loin-cloth), another cloth thrown over the shoulders and upper
part of the body, which except for this is often bare, and a third
rough cloth wound loosely round the head as a turban. All these
originally white, soon assume a very dingy hue. The every-day a tire
of a cultivator is thus a 'colorless' one, but the gala dress for
holiday may consist of red pagadi (pre-formed turban) or a mundase
or a freshly folded turban, a colored or white coat, and a white dhotar
(loin-cloth) with a red silk border f he can afford it. The coat
known as angarkha reaching the knee, with flaps folding over
the breasts and tied with strings is now out of fashion and the bandi
or a short coat coming only to the hips is more popular with the
cultivators.
In the cold weather the
cost is often stuffed with cotton and dyed dark green, or dark blue. A
sadara (shirt) may be worn under the coat; but cultivators
usually have only one garment, now-a-days often a sleeveless coat with
buttons in front. Some prefer to work in the fields with a jacket
known as bandi, and a sadara may be worn over it.
Artisans who work at
home wear only a dhotar waistcloth, or a pair of short pants
and a vest or a jacket. Hen they go out they wear the ordinary dress
of a middle class Hindu.
Though among Hindus
there is no special holiday dress on festivals or on days of family
rejoicing, all who can afford it put on richer and better clothes than
those ordinarily worn. Except among the higher classes the dress does
not vary at different times of the year. In the cold season well-to-do
Hindus wear woolen coat instead of cotton one and may wrap shawls over
the coat.
A well-to-do cultivator
or artisan wears a blanket instead of a shawl. Now-a-days many persons
wear out of doors a 'Nehru shirt' with or without a kabja(waistcoat)
and a "Gandhi cap".
Shoes (joda) are
usually worn in the heat and cotton-growing areas, but are less common
in the rice area, where they would continually stick in the mud in the
field. There sandals (jule) are fotern worn of the road, and
laid aside when the cultivator enters his field. Women go bare-footed,
but sometimes have sandals.
A Hindu woman's dress
is the full Maratha sadi of nine yard and a short-sleeved coli
covering only about half the length of the back and tied in front
just beneath the breasts in the middle by a knot made with the edges
of the two panels. The nine yards sadi is generally worn by
elderly ladies and is known as lugade or sadi in marathi. It
is forty-five to forty-two inches in width and it has two lengthwise
borders kanth or kinar, and also two breadth wise
borders, padar, at the two ends, of which one is more decorated
than the other. The mode of wearing the lugade by (Maratha)
Brahmans and other classes is with the hind pleats tucked into the
waist at the back-center and the decorated end (padar) thrown
over the left shoulder. Maratha ladies allow it to hang form
the waist down straight and round like a skirt and draw its end which
covers the bosom and back over the head. Sadis of five or six
yards in length have now become fashionable among young ladies in the
urban centers. These are worn cylindrically over a parkar or ghagara
also called petticoat. The old fashioned coli is also
discarded by them, and the use of brassieres, blouses, polkas, and
jumpers and the use of brassieres, blouses, polkas, and jumpers
has become quite common. A reversion to new type of colis in
the form of blouses with low-cut necks and close-fitting sleeves up to
the elbow is also noticed among them now-a-days.
Women of the working
classes, to allow freedom of movements for both their hands, draw the
loose end of the sadi fluttering on the back form the left
shoulder, tightly in front form underneath the right arm and tuck it
in the wrap of the sadi at the waist. They do not also allow
the manifold pleats to dangle low at the ankles but tuck them rightly
at the back.