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V Gangadhar

A vision in white

My father who died in 1989, at the ripe old age of 89, was a voracious reader of newspapers and magazines. But Femina was not on his reading list. Yet, I am certain he would have approved of an article which appeared in the issue of the magazine dated July 1.

Headlined White is Right, the two-page article features men and women talking about their one enduring fashion passion -- the white shirt. Says Karun (34), "I have a wardrobe of 23 white shirts -- cotton, twill, drill, cambric, the works. White is my colour." According to Sujata, 30, "Oooh! The White Shirt. You can dress it up, you can dress it down, you can wear it anywhere… I love it!" Samira, 29, commented, "A white shirt is the sexiest item in any wardrobe. If it's a white shirt with buccaneer sleeves and little pearl buttons down the front, it's like having a classic, a work of art." There were other glowing comments on the white shirt.

Femina only said it in 1997; my father has been saying the same thing since I was a toddler, except that he did not link the shirt with sexiness. Mind you, father knew what he was saying. In his younger days, he was quite the man about town. Like Frank Churchill in Emma, he had his hair cut and trimmed by a barber in the city and possessed an enviable wardrobe. The trousers were brown, tan, khaki, dark blue. But all the shirts were a dazzling white. They were made from expensive material; imported, I guess. Our album has plenty of photographs of father in his various white shirts. The photographs are more than 60-70 years old, but the brilliance of the shirts has not dimmed!

Father always bought the best in the market. Chocolates meant only Cadbury. We bathed with Pears or Vonolia White Rose soaps. Brylcream came from abroad, and the kitchen shelves were stocked with tins of Huntley Palmers biscuits. The material for the white shirts must have come from the best mills in Britain.

We would have been happy and proud of our immaculate father in his favourite white shirts. Except for the fact that he insisted we all wear white. Since our family was large, the white cloth was not purchased in yards, but in entire bales. My three elder sisters had skirts and blouses made from them. My mother's saree blouses and my shirts were also made from the same cloth.

Mind you, all of us liked white clothes. Yet, young as we were, we did not favour an entirely white wardrobe. Father insisted that we take proper care of our clothes but, as a school boy, it was almost impossible to keep the white shirts clean all the time. Dust, dirt, ink and other stains could not be avoided. And father's eyes had the uncanny knack of spotting things which he need not have seen! He was furious, particularly with ink stains, and would never believe my version that they were caused by a leaking fountain pen.

So, I wore white shirts all the time. All around me, I saw other boys wearing blue, green, grey and cream coloured shirts. When my cousins and uncles visited us, I discovered that they too possessed shirts of different colours and shades. Besides colours, what wonderful checks and stripes! I longed to wear such shirts and give white a go by. But any hint in that direction upset father considerably. "Don't you know the quality of the costly shirt material I give you?" he would scream. "They are the best in town. Instead, you want green, blue and yellow shirts. When will you learn to appreciate the good things in life?

I was too scared to respond. I was now in SSC, and still wore white shirts. Very soon, I'd go to college. Would I be forced to wear white shirts there too? I had strange feelings of growing up, getting married, begetting children and becoming old, wearing white shirts all the time!

By this time, my eldest sister had got married and set up home in Madras. I spent some days with her and, one day, my brother-in-law gave me a parcel. I opened it. It was a shirt piece in dark blue. I gazed at it for several minutes, gulped my emotions and croaked, "For me?" He nodded. Suddenly, I remembered something. "What about appa?" I asked. "He doesn't like me wearing coloured shirts." My brother-in-law convinced me that father would not say anything when he came to know that the shirt was a gift from his son-in-law.

Well, the tailor who stitched the shirt, botched up the job. The sleeves were too short, it was tight at the waist and the head went through with great difficulty. Yet, when I reached home, I wore the blue shirt in some triumph. It was also my first full-sleeved shirt. Father never favoured these. "If you are going to roll up your sleeves, why do you need a full-sleeved shirt?" he argued. To this day, I cannot think of a suitable reply.

Father's reaction to my new blue shirt was rather mild. In a sarcastic tone, he asked, "Which barber stitched this shirt?" By this time, my SSC results had been declared and I had to get ready for college life. One day, he took me to the cloth shop and asked me to buy whatever I wanted. "Coloured shirts?" I asked. "As you wish!" he replied. We picked up material for six or seven shirts; my association with white shirts had finally ended.

Later, I left home, got a job and was on my own. I had to buy my own shirts. When my parents came to Ahmedabad to spend some days with me, he had a look at my wardrobe. "Hey, most of your shirts are white," he commented. "Where are the coloured shirts?"

I laughed, "Appa, I entirely agree with you. There is nothing to beat the white shirt. But, as a kid, I needed a bit of variety." I explained my few coloured shirts were reserved for reporting assignments, as white shirts became dirty quickly!

"They have their plus points," he observed. "But, still, nothing compares to white shirts." I nodded in agreement.

Illustration: Laura Fernandes