Wrapped in warmth in winter

Wrapped in warmth in winter

 

Much like the existence of Santa Claus, every Indian some time around the end of the first decade of his/her life, learns the bitter fact (facts generally are bitter) that Bollywood films are not about reality.

On screen our muscular heroes and ultra-slim heroines break into a well-choreographed song with perfect lyrics and music and a battery of dancers dance in step behind them. Alas, nothing like that happens with my writing. I don’t just sit on my computer with the write-up supported by photographs or memes dropping on the screen. It takes me a few hours to let one idea bob its head higher than the others. I then put my thoughts together and generally do some reading about the topic, and subsequently try to shape everything into words. Yes, the selection of pictures also takes time.

This past week has been the coldest this season and the sense of inertia was fed by umpteen cups of tea and all kinds of excuses. Every time I started to type something out, my hands would get too cold for me to enjoy the exercise till I decided that sitting huddled with a shawl around my shoulders in front of the blower-heater while watching others working outside was a good use of my time. My hands warmed, I would rewrap my shawl, get myself another cup of tea, continue letting ideas bob up and down till it was time to get into the kitchen.

Assamese shawl

Kullu shawl

As I took off the shawl and threw it on the back of the chair, it brought to my mind the picture of my mother doing it hundreds of times. Her removing the shawl in the winter always signaled action and activity. She did not feel the cold that much and at home a shawl was the only woollen garment she wore. Sometimes if she did not feel like wearing a cardigan outside, she would wrap a bright Manipuri or Assamese cotton or woolen shawl, mostly gifted by my masi, her sister.

Naga shawl

I looked at the women sitting in the park in front of our building, noticing how hardly any were wearing a shawl. Most of the women prefer wearing cardigans, sweaters and jackets on the plea that they leave their hands free for work. Are shawls, like saris, going out of traditional use as a garment?

Sweaters are garments of utility, but shawls can be a thing of beauty to behold and preserve. Like saris, they too come in several types of fabric.

A shawl is a square, rectangular or triangular piece of fabric that is draped over shoulders, arms or even head during winter to keep warm or as an accessory to add a touch of style. It can be worn over a salwar-kameez, sari or even with a western outfit. Like designer saris, shawls can also be used to make a fashion statement. Most of them are unisex too.

Even though we have heard of toga, the white semi-circular woollen cloth the Roman men ‘draped over the left shoulder and around the body’, the shawl originated in India several centuries later. 

According to Wikipedia, in the 14^th century, Iranian scholar Sayeed Ali Hamadani suggested to Sultan Qutabdin, the king of Kashmir, that they start a shawl weaving industry in Kashmir using the wool of Kashmiri Ladakhi goats which marked the beginning of the shawl as well as pashmina weaving industry. Besides pashmina, shahtoosh and jamavar are also the kinds of shawls in Kashmir which marked the beginning of use of shawls per se. Made from the under-fleece of the Tibetan antelope Chiru, shahtoosh shawls are fine enough to pass through a ring while jamavar shawls have embroidery on woollen fabric.

 Fanny Holman-Hunt in a paisley shawl,
 painted by William Holman-Hunt 

Wikipedia says, ‘Always a luxury commodity, the intricate, tapestry-woven, fine wool shawl had become a fashionable wrap for the ladies of the English and French elite by the 18th century… As early as 1803, Kashmiri needlework production was established to increase and hasten output of these shawls, which had been imitated in England since 1784 and even in France. By 1870, the advent of the Jacquard loom in Europe destroyed the exclusivity of the original Kashmir shawl, which began to be produced in Paisley, Scotland. Even the characteristic Kashmiri motif, the mango-shape, began to be known simply as the paisley.’

According to britannica.com

The period from roughly 1800 up to the 1870s, when the fashion silhouette changed, was known as the “shawl period” because women in Europe and America wore shawls with almost all their clothing. At the beginning of that century, shawls were a necessity in a fashionable woman’s wardrobe because dresses were thin and décolleté; it was a sign of gentility to wear a shawl gracefully.

Kate Chopin in her novel The Awakening shows clothes being used as a major medium of expression by the characters and Edna, the main protagonist, uses her shawl to express herself.

No, I am not trying to give you ideas but I did see a video of television drama series Sasural Simar Ka where the shawl, perhaps accidentally, becomes the article of strangulation of the daughter in law by her mother in law.

I shall not force you to go though my knowledge about shawls, but suffice it to say that shawl has been the accepted article of attire in various cultures and countries from China to England, Germany and Spain and for all strata of society.They are available in all designs - plain to patterned, with different weaving patterns, tie and dyed, embellished, embroidered, knitted or crocheted, take your pick to suit your taste or need. Not only wool, you can choose the shawl made of cotton, silk, acrylic, lace or net.

You can find that each region of our country has a special shawl to its name- Kullu, Kinnaur (both woollen with colourful woven bands on borders), Naga, Manipuri, Assamese, to name a few.

In the southern states where the mild winter does away with the need for warm clothes, bright-coloured shawls or even towels (to me they make sense in that heat) are presented as a mark of honour.

Crocheted wooollen shawl

Going by the quality of fabric and its feel, weave, size, handwork which altogether decide the price, you can even decide who to buy it for. 

The typical Kashmiri shawls are delicately hand-embroidered using darning stitch in motifs of rose, tulip, pear, besides apple and cherry blossoms.

Pure pashmina or shahtoosh, however, are very expensive, but some claimed to be semi-pashmina, are available. I cannot vouch for the purity or authenticity for I am no expert, but they decidedly are softer to touch and lighter in weight. The usual Kashmiri variety I see in abundance are in aari (type of embroidery done with a hook) work on sheep wool.

Don't you also want to have some of the shawls that
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan is often seen wearing?

Traditionally, men have also used shawls, mostly woollen, called chadar or lohi, in northern states of our country. In addition to pullovers, vests, coats, blazers and all-weather jackets, you would often find colourful shawls in the wardrobe of most of them.

More and more men nowadays like to carry a shawl around their torso on a special occasion to showcase their sartorial elegance.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a shawl

In fact the first time I saw a popular political leader delivering an emotional monologue on the stage at a small function, the thing that caught my attention was how he had nothing pithy to say but his play with the shawl turned it into quite a performance and wasn’t the crowd duly impressed? Does that say something of our voters, though?

                                                                  - Anupama S Mani