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THE PEOPLE
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DRESS.
The ordinary dress of a man consists of a dhoti, a kurta and pheta or pagri. The dhoti is a strip of cloth about 5 yards long arranged round the loins and passed between the legs. The kurta is the upper garment, shaped somewhat like a short shirt. A good many of the poorer people do not wear it but substitute a strip of cloth worn round the shoulders. Better class people
ordinarily wear a bandi or waistcoat over the kurta. The pheta is a long strip of cloth wound round the head to form a turban:
it is often of Kosa silk. The small Maratha turban worn by
native gentlemen is a very smart and costly headdress. The barakasi is an elaborate double-breasted coat tied with twelve strings arranged in pairs; three pairs fasten the inner flap and three the outer. The uparna is a strip of fine cloth worn over the shoulder. But all these have fallen into disuse among younger men. Coats that button and small embroidered caps that were used two or three decades ago have also gone out of fashion. Their place has been taken by shirts, pairans, pyjamas and shorts and going bare-headed is getting quite popular. Heel-less native slippers with turned up toes are seen sometimes but English pattern shoes and boots are quite common. Brahmans used to wear a special garment of silk, linen or woollen cloth at meals and women also wore special clothes while preparing meals. But all that is now becoming history. In the southern part of the district all classes take great care to avoid pollution and people of lower castes also sit apart and turn their backs on their companions while taking meals.
A woman's dress consists of the lugade and coli. The lugade is a strip of cloth about nine yards in length put on so as to form a sort of petticoat with the padar or free end covering the breasts and head and falling like a veil over the right shoulder. Kohli and Dhimar women have the padar on the left shoulder. The coli is a very small short sleeved bodice, covering the breast but leaving the waist bare. Women belonging to the forest tribes may not wear it at all. Bright colours are greatly favoured, red, blue, green and yellow being commonly worn. Borders and padars are often beautifully embroidered. White, as the colour of widowhood may not he worn unless, the lugade has a coloured border. Of late five or six-yard saris worn cylindrically have come into vogue. A widow's dress is white without any borders.
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