CHOOSING CHRISTMAS TROUSERS

Choosing Christmas trousers

After discarding the ready-made trousers for Christmas saying that they were made more for mannequins than humans, I ventured to a local Sowripalayam shop for choosing the material.

The small shop near the bus stop had a young female at the cash counter – obviously the owner as she was more interested in browsing on the mobile phone. There was a solitary salesman who was balding and graying rapidly, (like me!)looking anxiously at me.

I asked him for the cloth for ‘trousers’. He repeated my request saying if it was for trousers. I affirmed whole heartedly!

He brought out some cotton material on the counter. It was a light blue cloth with large dark blue lines. To my dismay, this appeared to be the underwear material that the Tamil movie comedians like Senthil and Goundamani wear under their lungies, exposing the material to the world at large whenever they chose to!

I said,” What’s this?”

He answered, “Trouser cloth! What else? They move fast”.

By now, the owner got interested. I knew this, because she put away her mobile and looked towards me. She chipped in, “Everybody buys them!” 

She even looked surprised I had the audacity to question what it was!

“Not me,” I said.”I want trouser cloth!”

Both of them kept looking at me as though I was mentally challenged and repeated what they had uttered a minute ago!

I realized at the folly of this communication at last. My laughter finally broke the spell of misunderstanding!

I pointed to the trouser cloth section and said , “That!”.

Lady replied,” Oh that… Why didn’t you say so? That is pant and not trouser cloth!”

I told her that pants meant underwear in my dictionary. Before she got the wrong idea that I was getting fresh with her, it was best to explain what I meant!

I introduced myself as the local surgeon. As taught to me by Rev Fr Augustine of St Joseph’s School, Trichy, in UK English, 'pants' meant underwear and 'trousers' meant long men’s wear! 

In USA however,  pants meant the long stuff! I explained this in a way which Rev Fr Augustine no doubt would have approved! This was news to them! 

Furthermore, I added it was a 'pair of trousers' – as trouser meant only one leg! More news from Wren and Martin English grammar was imparted indeed, even when the book had gone out of print!!

Next stop was at the local tailor’s. 

Now this guy apparently knew me, as my wife was his doctor! Fortunate to have a popular physician wife!

Velu, my childhood tailor had always done 3 pleats for school shorts...... I used to loathe pleats! They made the shorts baggy. You felt you were walking, wearing a school bag!

Shorts with pleats used to look like the kakhi shorts worn by police constables of those days ( they used to run a lot after thieves to catch them those days!)

I used to long for pleatless shorts and trousers, but alas Velu had never yielded! 

My dad’s undeniable commandment to him was, ”Thou shalt stitch only pleated loose shorts for my son!”

Coming back to the present, the tailor silently took the measurements. I was wearing a pleatless one as a model – I did not say a word, secretly hoping that he had not seen snaps of my childhood shorts!

I also remember Velu used to routinely stitch 'cuffs' for the long trousers when I reached college. 

Cuffs were fold-ups in the bottom of the trouser legs. 

These folds were good for nothing, except to gather sand in them at the end of the day! I did not see any advantage of trouser cuffs, when compared to the more ‘modern’ legs without cuffs... except when you wanted to make the legs longer. 

You could just unfold the cuffs and the trousers instantly became longer. The very reason for fathers to love these !! But for some obscure reason, all the men I knew also wore trouser cuffs those days. Trousers with no cuff was considered 'revolutionary and forward'!

I recall my music teacher Mr Joseph had a habit using a couple of ‘trouser clips’ too. 

He would tuck the excess trouser leg in them to prevent getting it caught in the spokes of his bicycle wheel. The picture shows a modern plastic one!, thought I've never seen one for decades.

Nowadays, women with long pallu or dupatta travel without a care in the world, on two wheelers. I feel sad whenever I see this!  

Even when the traffic was slower in the past, the men were worried about getting the trouser legs caught in cycle spokes! How come now, we never worry about women’s safety ! Not to mention the pillion riders not wearing helmets as well! 

Be it as it may, I did not say anything about the trouser cuffs to Sowripalayam tailor. 

Asked when he’d deliver it, he said, “3 days”! This was news indeed!

 With Velu, it was always 1-2 weeks before we could progress to ‘trials’ for the trousers! 

During 'trials', he would make you stand up, put all sorts of pieces of trousers on you and hold them up by sticking pins into the cloth. 

One had to be careful to avoid the pins going through the genitals. 

I shudder to think back now, that Velu was a bachelor with no knowledge of anatomy!! My ignorant father used to watch all these pins going through all the cloth pieces without a single thought about the future of his son, happily giving useless suggestions like “An inch looser here, an inch longer there”.... sheesh!

No pair of trousers was ever stitched in 2 weeks’ time, even after the trial.

Another thing in fashion was the 'trouser fly'. This used to be made with buttons initially. After clearing up with dad, Velu chose the modern brass metal zipper! Which has now has given way to plastic ones! 

In the beginning , Velu was confused if the zipper was to open from the  top or from the bottom. This led to confusion in acute emergencies! This confusion was also transferred to me (and other customers, I am sure) during its use!

Anyway, now 3 days are over and I received my stitched trousers. They are excellent! Surprisingly no pleats and naturally no turn ups too!

Time has moved on! 

No one has the time or desire to shop for trousers cloth and visit a tailor to stitch! (I hear that women do still!) 

I am glad that I was born in the era when things were slower, cooler, less autonomous, with more interpersonal relationships overshadowed by parental supervision!