Martha, Betina, and Frank: Tourists in Kerala
On Tribal Backpacker Fashion: An Anthropological Essay
Fair reader, I invite you to travel with me to India where I study a tribe whose dress habits and marriage customs are most strange. I give you: The Tribe of Backpacker.
Arriving in India the backpacker meets a strange conundrum.
Upon touching their toes into the soil of Bharata (India), many European tourists find themselves meshed in a sort of madness- they find the surroundings chaotic, hot, and confusing. Unable, generally to speak Hindi or the local language- they constantly worry about getting ripped off, contracting one of those nasty tropical fevers, or some type of water-born fluke or parasite - with good reason.
In order to be accepted into the Tribe of Backpaker, however, they must fawn love for and knowledge of India, they must learn to meditate, drink Kingfisher with relish and how to stand on their heads. But first, before these latter advanced level tribal initiations, they must relinquish their old self through a rite of passage wherein they change their style to meet that of the other members of the constantly shifting tribe.
Their native dress- blue jeans and a T-shirt- from England, Europe, or the US feels too hot for the Indian climate. And yet, the sari is cumbersome and takes expertise to tie as does the dhoti (sarong that men wear). Novice sari wearers find their pleats backwards and their pallu threatening to fall askew. Naïve dhoti tiers find themselves exposed when their dhoti falls down in public. Salwar kameez (a three piece ensemble with loose pants, long tunic and a shawl worn backwards to cover the breasts) is not easy to find in tourist haunts- though widely available at every shop at every corner in every Indian town, elsewhere. At any rate, the Salwar Kameez does not, for some reason, appeal to members of the tribe.
Hefty guidebooks (like the Lonely Planet that most tourists lug from place to place) warn tourists away from shorts and reveling tops- advice that some heed and others blatantly disregard. Our tourist finds herself in the middle of a quandary: This is too revealing and that is too hot. And so, she is faced with that daunting, junior-high-school dance question: What to wear? Of course, the answer comes quickly when our tourist is faced with the various tourist tailors and Kashmiri shops selling cheap cotton clothes. The women salivate over the bargains- the relative value of each item increasing in direct proportion to the bargain that they think they have gotten from the seller. (They haven't gotten a bargain, believe me).
One should note that our tourists do not dress to impress the Indian populace, most of whom dress with particular care. Even the poorest wear clean freshly starched and pressed clothing. But, then, most tourists will have little contact with the daily life of India- floating, instead, from ashram on the beach, to tourist resort in the tea plantations, from Mamangalam to Pondicherry to Madurai to Suchidram to Kochi to Hampi and onto Goa. They dress, then, for their own tribal group- their soul-searching, chakra-balancing, meditation-wielding, pot-smoking, Kingfisher-drinking, goa-trance-dancing, yoga-asana-doing clan. They sport bindi's (a small jewel worn decoratively on the forehead by many women in India) on their foreheads while wearing tank tops. They buy dupattas (shawls) and then cover their shoulders instead of their chests, (some in modesty or maybe to shield from the sun), leaving their breasts exposed in the decolage of their tightly fitting tops. Some women wear jewels denoting their married status on their forehead with short skirts and tank tops- the cultural equivalent of wearing a white wedding dress with combat boots and pasties attached to the front of the dress's missing bodice.
Aum signs are an important symbol of this clan- showing membership in the highest ranks of its esoteric order (of course, I have never seen any Indian person wear this symbol on their clothes- it is reserved for temples), but tourists sport the Aum on scarves, bags, shawls, pants, and shirts. Islamic symbols (for obvious reasons) are avoided as are Christian symbols- Jesus is not hip enough for our tribe. Many favor the elephant headed God, Ganesh,- whose fat belly and elephant-head is so cute and, after all, his name is easier to remember than Hanuman or Subramanium or Sabrimala Ayappa.
Below the waist this year's must have for the fashionable, spiritual, soul-searching tourist are these pants that cause my teeth to grind in the night resulting in lock-jaw every morning when I try to eat my "life-style" museli.
It is rare to spot The Pants outside of tourist haunts like Fort Kochi. I rarely see them in Ernakulam. I hear that you can buy them in Goa and, yes, I did spot them, much to my rising blood pressure in Pondichery. I hear they are for sale in Goa and perhaps in Delhi. Both men and women of the tribe wear The Pants, but they are preferred by the females- perhaps as part of an elaborate courting ritual? I will need more anthropological evidence to understand how their symbolic potency works on the males. Males of the tribe stick to loose fitting linen or cotton pants that tie or fold around the waist- delighting and scandalizing groups of Indian boys who wear the latest imported jeans just-in from China and send text messages of love to their "girl friends" on their $300 cell phones bought for them by their cousin-brother who works in Dubai or Chargah or Rhiad.
These, however, are not The Pants.
The Pants are something else all together. I wish I could do an ethnographic history of The Pants. Where were they invented? Who was the first of the tribe to wear them? Do they bring super-natural powers to the wearer? Do they help "focus the charkas" of the wearer? Who was the first tailor to sew The Pants? Were they pleased with their creation or horrified at the massive fashion faux pas they had released on the sub-continent? This information, however, seems lost in the arcane lore of the tribe. Despite extensive oral history collection, none of the members of the tribe seem to remember the roots or origin of The Pants. The mythology and folk-lore of The Pants seems to have disappeared through time and the rigors of travel. Indeed most tribal members are largely un-self-reflexive about The Pants, preferring, in interviews to drink Kingfisher and smoke cigarettes. Thus, I left my quest for the ethnographic history of The Pants and turned, instead to a phenomenological and semeiotic study. Please know that I try, fair reader, to understand their native customs, to have compassion for their barely civilized ways.
The following is a brief description of The Pants from my field journal:
The Pants have a wide elastic waist- something like a knocked-up teenager might sew into her favorite jeans to accommodate her expanding girth. They appear to be fashioned from the cheapest cotton fabric dyed in a huge pallette of colors. The dye, of course, runs badly the first time the dhoti (hereditary washer) smacks them on a rock in the river.
The legs are loose and gathered at the ankles, like the "harem pants" worn by a cheap dancer at a Middle Eastern buffet shimmying between plates of humus and baba ganoush. These features are not too strange for locals whose demure saris and salwar kameez (or for the more radical young woman- short kurta and jeans)- at least the legs of The Pants serve to semi-gracefully hide the figure. The feature of The Pants that makes me uncomfortable, that challenges my cultural relativity, that makes my teeth grind, and my eyes stare when I see them sporting The Pants is- the crotch.
Those of you with dirty minds might ask- are The Pants crotchless?
No, fair reader, The Pants have an ample crotch. In fact, the crotch of The Pants is so long that it hangs loosely between the ankles of the wearer, swinging like a stretched-out Joey-pouch on an elderly mama kangaroo. The crotch of The Pants is so long that it swings idly, like the dangling arm of a mangrove tree, skimming the calves of the tourist. I exaggerate not, fair reader.
This brings us to the function of The Pants. I am sorry to admit that this native dress seems incomprehensible to my mind. I admit, fair reader, that I have been unable, yet, to determine the function of The Pants, I am left only with questions. For instance:
What do they keep in there? Is it a pouch for a pilatha* in case Delhi belly hits them in the street? I am sorry, fair reader, for the excessive scatology. Please know that such language is only used in hopes of scientific progress in understanding the function of The Pants. Maybe the crotch of the pants is where they keep their super-powers or maybe their alien space-craft.
My only hope, fair reader, is that next year another fashion will have scoured the ranks of the Backpacker Tribe- that or I will need a mouth guard. My teeth can't handle the stress.
* A term denoting a large pile of poop in one's pants.
