Midriff school's student planner and handbook which includes "clothing that reveals the midriff". In 2004, the Board of Education of Meriden, Connecticut, brought a dress code that banned shirts, blouses that expose the top of the shoulders, haltertops, spaghetti tops, and any clothing that exposed the waist, midriff or hips. Indian women have traditionally worn saris that bare the midriff, especially South Indian women. The gap on the midriff between sari and the choli presented the elegance of a woman's graceful sway of her gait. A possible cultural justification is that in ancient Indian tradition, the navel of the God Vishnu
Sari of life and creativity, hence the midriff is to be left bare by the sari. Early Sanskrit literature has a wide vocabulary of terms for the veiling used by women, such as "Avagunthana" (oguntheti/oguṇthikā), meaning cloak-veil, "Uttariya" meaning shoulder-veil, "Mukha-pata" meaning face-veil and "Sirovas-tra" meaning head-veil. In the "Pratimānātaka", a play by Bhāsa describes in context of "Avagunthana" veil that ""ladies may be seen without any blame (for the parties concerned) in a religious session, in marriage festivities, during a calamity and in a forest"". The same sentiment is more generically expressed in later Sanskrit literature. Śūdraka, the author of