[Assam] Of Wearing Suits and their Side-effects - Kalyan Dutta-Choudhury, The Sentinel

[Ram Sarangapani]

Netters,

Kalyan da writes well, and I kind of like this piece. Reminds me of Gandhi,
 "Imitating the English Gentleman" which we had at high school, where Gandhi
declares
"And Mr. Bell rang the bell of Alarm in my ears, and I awoke" after he felt
guilty asking money from back home for his elocution and music lessons in
London.

"The head tailor there was called masterji. When he was called, he showed up
at the front desk with a measuring tape coolly around his neck and the two
ends of it dangling. He talked sparingly because he knew his business. Any
professional person who talks to his or her clients doesn’t know his or her
profession." - K DC

This is just precious. I remember going for my first job interview at
Guwahati. Didn't have a suit, so I borrowed a jacket from a friend - similar
shade. But the jacket was a size smaller. So, I used the next best option -
slung the jacket over my shoulders - to look hip, and make it look like it
was my suit.

--Ram
_______________

*Kalyan Dutta-Choudhury

*A television programme showed men’s suits selling for upwards of, get this
incredible story, forty three thousand dollars. No, the suits weren’t made
of gold or titanium or any other precious metal. They were regular woollen
suits but the wool came from some animals grazing in some kind of grass
which grew in cool highlands of South America. The interviewer sported a
high-priced suit of that kind of lineage but he didn’t look any different
than when he was wearing his regular suit of approximately of same colour
and texture. But that’s purely my judgement.
Then, what is the hype about paying forty three thousand dollars for a suit?
That lies in the psychology of buying at one end, and selling at the other
end, of the business enterprise. The buyer may be a craven soul like Barney
Madeoff who made his money by bilking others, but how the seller, in right
conscientiousness, could sell the high-priced suits? They are made of the
same mould. They feed off each other’s depravity.
A relative of ours went to France, of many other places, for a visit to see
how things were different up there. It seemed he made lots of money. Who
doesn’t make money in Assam? Only fools don’t. Looking around in Paris, he
found a tailoring shop which made suits. Asking for the price of a suit, he
was shocked to learn the price of suits — way too high. With that kind of
money, he quickly calculated using his handy pocket calculator: ‘‘I could
make two pairs of suits with heavier clothing at Mohini’s in Guwahati.’’
That’s what he did. The suits were a bit ill-fitting and out of style. But
who cares about good fit and style in the non-suit domain like Guwahati!
It’s the quality of clothing that matters.
 In the late 50s and early 60s, there was a veritable mania of wearing suits
to look cool. All kinds of grants and scholarships made that possible. If
you were a student at Assam Engineering College in those heady ‘engineering’
days, and you the poor soul didn’t have a nice pair to wear to go to Gauhati
in the evenings, you were so out of style and time.
So where did the students go to get their suits made? Where else but
Mohini’s in Fancy Bazar? The head tailor there was called masterji. When he
was called, he showed up at the front desk with a measuring tape coolly
around his neck and the two ends of it dangling. He talked sparingly because
he knew his business. Any professional person who talks to his or her
clients doesn’t know his or her profession. Did you ever talk with your
doctor? He will shut you up any time you open your mouth to say something
important to him  — something vitally important.
Anyway, the culture of wearing a good pair of suits migrated down to those
aspiring to be future engineers too. Such an aspiring soul came to board in
our DS hostel. In a short time, he discarded his white pajamas, blue shirts
and sandals and began wearing alternating between a light-blue suit and a
dark-brown suit with appropriately matching shoes whenever he went out,
which was often. When you wear a suit, you don’t sit in your room and study
like so many fools! You go out with other suit-wearers. When you’re out with
suit-wearers, you go for a long walk up and down through busy thoroughfares
stopping at stores and buying odd little things showing off what a cool guy
you were. If there were womenfolk in the stores, it was moksha! There were
women. But they had more sense. They won’t tango with them.
One evening, the student’s father showed up at the hostel enquiring about
his son. But the son wasn’t there for hours, perhaps gallivanting in the
city street. After hours passed, I came out of my room and asked the man if
I could take a message for his son. ‘‘No, that won’t be necessary... I’m
financially ruined. I can’t keep up with his demands. Every so often he
would come home and tell his mother he needed money. Lots of them. He needs
to buy suits, shirts and shoes to prepare himself to be an good engineer.
I’m just a railway clerk at Maligaon... How would I know how engineers are
made?’’ said the haggard man wisping in Bengali.
It was the most pathetic and most depraved story I had the misfortune ever
came to hear. If I had a hidden desire to buy a pair of nice suits, it
instantly vanished for a few years at least. I came to the US wearing a suit
but I discarded that in favour of blue jeans and T-shirts. If I care to
look, the suit might be still there somewhere in the house. But for what
should I do that? I’m a non-suit man heart and soul.
(The writer is settled at Berkeley, California)