THE PEOPLE

DRESS

The ordinary dress of a cultivator or a labourer consists of a white dhotar with a narrow coloured border wound about his loins, a short jacket, a turban, a pair of shoes, and a kind of scarf called uparna. In cold weather he often wears a blanket also over his head, but on many occasions he goes without the jacket and shoes. People almost always buy dhotars in pairs, a fact which sometimes facilitates identification in criminal cases. The turban is generally red but sometimes white. Well-to-do people wear longer coats, fasten their dhotars in looser folds and have all their garments of finer quality. The turban of a Brahman or Deshmukh is generally more costly and lasts for two years. But now a days the half-pants and manilas have penetrated even the country side and dhotars are becoming scarcer.

People who came into contact with Europeans introduced modifications, substituting or adding trousers. They began to wear collars with or without ties. The first garment changed, both fashion and comfort though not convenience being served, is the shoe. Clerks and some others when working used to wear a round cap, topi. Women commonly wear a lugde or sari and choli. The former is a piece of cloth about 24 feet long and four feet wide which is first wrapped round the waist and then brought over the shoulder, carried back between the legs and tucked in at the back. The head may be left free or a fold may be easily raised to cover it. Such a garment does not set off the figure but sometimes its free lines are graceful. The choli is a small and tight bodice. These garments may be almost of any colour, but dark, red, and green are the most common. Light and gaudy colours would in most castes not be considered respectable but fashion has now favoured them among all. Women may wear vahana (sandals) for field work but otherwise leave their feet bare.

Among Muslims men generally wear a pyjama, trousers and a long coat, but not always. They sometimes wear a dhotar in a coloured check pattern, sometimes a plain white one. Their women also generally wear trousers together with a choli and a scarf which is tied round the waist and brought over the head. Numerous differences used to be commonly recognised in the dress and ornaments of different castes and though these are often observed by certain individuals, they are more frequently disregarded by people in general. With the enormous increase in travelling, bringing far more outsiders to this and other Berar districts than formerly, people see a greater variety of fashions and largely adopt whatever pleases them. As a head-dress, the simple paika superseded the turban and though it used to be tied in different ways, it obliterated very characteristic differences. With the coming of the Gandhi cap, there was practical uniformity and now with people going bareheaded, the uniformity is still preserved, as it is in other articles of dress like the trousers and the manila among all castes and classes.

Perhaps old fashions survive, in India, among women more than men, though some changes have taken place in their attire also. The five or six-yards sari and bodices and blouses are now the same from Brahman maids to Mahar maids. Caste is most markedly observed among Banjara women who are in Akola district called Labhanis; they wear short but voluminous petticoat and are loaded with ornaments. The choli of a Banjari woman has sleeves which almost reach her wrists. Rajput women sometimes keep to their old lahenga but have partly adopted the local sari; when going out of doors, they wear a white veil. Marvadi women also wear a lahenga. Among the Erandi Telis, a woman should give up her choli after a child has been born to her. The end of the sari is brought up in front over the right shoulder, behind the head and then down over the left shoulder by women of Beldar, Mochi, Pinjara and Pardeshi Kumbhar castes and by Gujaratis but other women wind it up upwards over the left shoulder and then downwards over the right. Bari and Phul Mali women draw horizontal lines of kunku on their foreheads, but most other castes apply round spots, which may not be worn by a widow. In most castes it is thought unlucky to wear gold below the waist and so a well-to-do women may have gold on her forehead and in her hair, in her nose and ears, round her neck, and on her wrists, but her anklets and toe-rings are of silver only. Some have a tooth filled with gold to ensure that they will be in contact with that metal at death. Women of the poorest castes other than wandering tribes generally have glass bangles and some heavy silver ornaments. The Kunbi is fond of smoking tobacco and chewing pan, betel-leaves, and generally carries with him a chanchi, a cloth bag with three or four compartments, the lowest for tobacco, the next for khand. pieces of betel-nut and the top one for kath katechu; he places a few betel-leaves and a small tin or nalkande for lime, upon this and folds them all together. His wife carries at her vaist, a little bag called pishvi in which are kept supari and a few pice for herself and a dabi, small tin, or brass case, of opium for her infant.

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