April 15, 2012, 11:45 am IST in Dehati Aadmi | India

Remove those colonial knots *from around your necks*


A childhood friend of mine who is a very senior Government officer in a large coastal city, he has a big-big car with a very amazing rotating red beacon and loud siren on it’s roof, dropped in to meet me a few days ago. He was coming straight from one of the Central Government buildings in Lutyen’s Delhi, was all togged up in lounge suit with tie, and sweating profusely as well as looking visibly uncomfortable all dolled up.

He had left by air early in the morning, landed at Delhi Airport, gone straight to his meetings, and was in triple perspiration mode by the time he landed up. So as I handed him a clean kurta-pyjama and towel, I asked him – why are you wearing this monkey suit, you look like the langur that the bioscope man used to train to wind up his gramophone and later on commit petty thefts too – that, by the way, is what I have always associated ties and suits with, for those who will recall what bioscopes with gramophones mounted on bicycles were.

To which he said, well, we have to go to these meetings chaired by the Minister and everybody else is wearing a suit. What, I asked him, is the Minister wearing? Never mind that, said he, the suit and tie also helps me stride right into the otherwise high security building without having to waste time and stand in line for a pass. 

But then he also told me how, after striding right in like the bada babu that he was, that he ended up spending four hours waiting. In the ante room of the PA to the PS to the Minister. Which was not even air-conditioned properly. So he perspired. Like a horse. Like generations of babus have done, for decades, even after our colonial Masters left.

And why? To bust past the security checks. Which took me back a few decades, in another part of the world.

This was in the early ’80s, turbulent times in the Persian Gulf arena and also in many other parts of the world, especially in and around the Indian Ocean, without all the attendant benefits of rapid information that the internet era has brought to the fore. The US had retreated very rapidly out of Vietnam, though their last man out of Saigon, John Gunther Dean, had been posted to Delhi where he moved around like a Viceroy to stir up the area, and  if you understood how the world was in those days, then the whole concept of a European (or American) civilisation getting booted out and defeated by an Asian country, that too a small country like Vietnam, was very traumatic. Especially in a symbolic way, people from the West were simply not used to the idea of getting defeated by Asians. Or even by the Polish people, for that matter.

Do remember,at this juncture, the South Korean and Chinese industrial might was nowhere near what it is today, the Japanese were still very much under American military support and India was still emerging from the confusion that reigned after the Emergency. And the oil countries in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, they were very much all under the American thumb.

But in the midst of all this, Iran, which under the Shah was almost like an American colony in Asia, suddenly upped and threw the Americans out. Mainly so that they could control the proceeds of their own oil resources, but also largely because they quite rightly knew that their own culture and civilisation was way better and ahead of what the colonials were trying to impose by the back door.

Iran, before they got rid of the Shah, was becoming like some parts of India are becoming now – pathetic mimics of what people think western civilisation is all about. So, all that had to go.

And amongst the first things they threw out was the neck-tie. Because they also knew that their own banking system did better. Shipping oil to South Africa, under sanctions then, as Iran is now, was a great learning curve on how to live without the yoke of the colonial dollar. And for them, the biggest symbol of the colonial yoke was – the necktie.

So, in very quick moves, the Iranians simply replaced the collar on their shirts. Now a necktie would simply not work.

And what did they replace it with?

The Nehru collar. Which, by the way, was what Chairman Mao’s collars were also fashioned on.

I was there when it happened, and asking around, came to learn how important it was from the perception management and self-respect as a Nation point of view it was to have pride in what you wear. And what you discard.

Maybe it is time to introduce once again the Nehru collar. With light cotton jackets.

Because, nothing is more stupid than trying to pretend that we somehow go up in dignity and self-worth because we can stride past the security guards, by wearing a neck-tie.

Especially if you think back and recall what the monkey on the bioscope man’s bicycle really used to be utilised for. 

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
Characters remaining (3000)