THE PEOPLE

DRESS

THE DRESS ENSEMBLE OF HINDUS OF RATNAGIRI District which varies to some extent according to caste and creed does not differ much from the one current in other Marathi speaking districts. A thing to be noticed in the district is that because of its moist and warm climate all the year round the people in general are found sparing in the use of clothes.

Child dress.

The swaddling clothes, baloti, for the child consist of a triangular piece of cloth which can be tied round the child's waist so as to cover the buttocks and the front. The traditional wear for the baby, whether "a boy or a girl are the topare, kunci and angde or zabale. For a topare two doubled square pieces of cloth are sewn together only on two sides, and to the lower ends of the unsewn sides are fastened two tapes. When the two pieces of the unsewn sides are opened they form a hollow into which the baby's head is put and the tapes are tied together under its chin. When the unsewn sides of the topare are extended by sewing to it a khana (bodice cloth) it forms a kunci and serves the purpose both of a cap and a frock. Angade is a general term indicating a sewn garment for the upper body in which could be included zabale (frock), bandi or peti (jacket) worn by the child. When the baby grows two or three years old, a round or folded cap for the head, sadara, pairan (shirt) for the upper part, and caddi, tuman or colna or short pants for the lower part are sewn for the use of boys, and parkara (petticoat), caddi (pant), polka (bodice) and jhaga (frock) for the use of girls. Girls of eight or ten if they do not persist in the use of frocks, parkar (petticoat) and polka or coli (bodice), may take to the wear of sadi (small robe) and coli (bodice).

Male Dress.

The ordinary dress of upper class Hindus is, for the men indoors, a dhotar (waistcloth) and a sadara or pairan (shirt); outdoors a dhotar (waistcloth), a coat, a cap or a rumala (head-scarf) and vahanas (sandals). He may also wear a uparane (shouldercloth). On important occasions he wears, in addition to his ordinary out-of-door clothes a rumala with a jari border and made of silk, a regular shirt with cuffs and collar and instead of a short coat a long coat known as the pharsi fashion coat. The Brahman turban or pagadi of Maharashtra is rarely seen in the district and the freshly folded turban or rumala is found in the wear of elderly persons. The uparane (shouldercloth) is used only by the orthodox few. Generally the male footwear is vahanas (sandals) in rural areas and chappals and half-shoes in urban areas. The square-toed red shoes (joda) of Poona are practically extinct on Ratnagiri side. Now-a-days many persons wear out of doors a 'Nehru shirt' with or without kabja (waistcoat) and a 'Gandhi cap'.

The wardrobe of a well-to-do young man may consist of all the items of the western dress ensemble including the ' bush shirt' and 'bush coat' of recent origin. His outdoor dress varies between three types: (1) A lengha (loose trousers or slacks) and a long shirt of the ' Nehru' type, or a pair of short pants and a shirt, the two flaps of the shirt being allowed to hang loose on the shorts or being tucked inside them. (2) A pair of trousers in combination with a shirt or a half-shirt, a bush shirt or a bush-coat. The shirt is tucked underneath the trousers and its sleeves may be rolled up in 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 serawani or acakan and a survar. Among the urbanite young men the use of dhotar is getting rare which is in some evidence among the middle-aged.

Among middle class Hindus, such as husbandmen and craftsmen the man wears indoors a loincloth or shorts, a waistcloth and sometimes a waistcoat; out-of-doors he wears a waistcloth, a sadara, a waistcoat or sleeveless smock kancola, with or without head scarf rumal, and in cold or wet weather, a blanket kambli. On great occasions, instead of his smock he wears a coat and other items of dress worn by the rich but of cheaper quality. Among the poorest classes, field and town labourers, men generally wear indoors a loincloth, a caddl and blanket; out-doors a short waistcloth panca, and blanket or head scarf, and on festive occasions a waistcloth, a sadara or a jacket, and a fresh head scarf.

The dhotar (about 50 inches wide and four or four and a half yards long) in the wear of Brahmans and allied classes is generally worn in such a way that the left side portion is drawn up and tucked behind in the wrap, and the right side remainder is folded breadthwise into a few pleats and tucked at the navel. It is customary for them to fold the hind portion of the dhotar in pleats about three Inches broad and tuck them behind tightly and flatly in a bunch. The front pleats are carefully smoothed and a few of them are taken tip and tucked over the already tucked up bunch at the navel. For making the dhotar a fit wear for work the method followed is known as kacya wherein the lower of the front pleats, after their upper ends are tucked in at the navel, are drawn up between the legs behind and tucked in at the back-centre.

The peasants and lower class people wear a shorter dhoti (known as panca) and have but few puckers in front and behind, their ends hanging and fluttering loose. Even when the dhoti, is of the regular size, they have the back-tuck without regular pleats, and before fixing it they roll down a waist-band over the dhoti; and especially while working, they take up the portion of the dhotar on the left side by the lower end and within the fold gather the surplus right side pleats or portion and tuck the end in the wrap.

Female Dress.

The chief items of a woman's dressware in the district are the sari (robe) and the short sleeved coli (bodice). The sari generally worn by elderly ladies is eight to nine yards in length and forty-five to fifty-two inches in width, and is known as lugade or sadi in Marathl. Saris of five to six yards are usually worn by girls or modern fashionable ladies who necessarily wear a foundation of a parakara (petticoat) and an underwear (caddi). Both types have two lengthwise borders kanth or kindr, also two breadthwise borders padara at the two ends, of which one is more decorated than the other.

The mode of wearing the lugade favoured by all the Hindu classes in the district is with the hind pleats tucked into the waist at the back-centre. This mode of wearing the sadi is known as sakaccha nesana as opposed to golanesana (round mode of wear) which is getting popular with girls and fashionable ladies wearing saris five to six yards in length. It is worth noting that " in the Konkan the dancing girls, who in ordinary daily life may and do wear the hind pleats without let or hindrance, do not and are not allowed to wear them when they are engaged for giving public dancing and singing performances."[ Indian Costumes, G. S. Ghurye, P. 193.]

The coli (bodice) characteristic of the region covers only about half the length of the back and is tied in front just beneath the breasts in the middle by a knot made with the edges of the two panels. The fashionable urbanites have to some extent discarded this old fashioned attire and have taken to the use of brassiers, blouses, polkas and jumpers. In their case a reversion to new types of colis in the form of blouses with low cut necks and close-fitting sleeves up to the elbow revealing the region about the lower ribs for a space of one to three inches is noticed now-a-days.

Of the poorer classes both men and women wear a thickly folded blanket drawn over the head and falling to about the waist. When at work in fields, husbandmen hang on their heads irale, a peaked and rounded teak or palm leaf shield. A peculiar custom in Malvan, Vengurla and Sawantwadi is that all Hindu and native Christian women who can afford it wear chaplets or wreaths of red and yellow flowers. [The custom is said to have been brought from Goa. The flowers used are: surangl (Calysaccion longifolium), gend or butanv (Amaranthus globosus), kevada (Pandanus odoratissimus), mandar (Calatropis gigantia); sevanti (Chrysanthemum indicum), and aboil (Ruellia infundibuliformia). They are grown in every village and numbers of flower strings are daily brought to market.]

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