Fashion in a Feverish Haste

Aarna distractedly runs a finger over the top of a table, with a duster in the other hand, striving with faraway reveries.

- Sreelekha Chatterjee

Her thin torso is elegantly mantled in a starched cotton sari, with perfect front pleats. All is quiet, except for the lyrical rustling of her drapery and the thoughts in her mind.

Unexpectedly, her husband, Bodhi, walks in with his briefcase.

“Got a half-day off!” He declares to his pretty wife, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his palm.

She doesn’t respond, stands quite still; her solemn eyes facing the western window, squinting into the late-afternoon sun.

“What’s the matter?” He asks, placing his hand on her shoulder, sensing disquiet in their three-month-old marriage.

“Now you’ll change into a vest and a lungi.” Aarna twists her small head on her shoulders and points toward his baggy trousers and loosely fitted shirt. Almost instantly, she averts her eyes.

Bodhis an average-built man with a swarthy face, black hair and no animation in his features, far from being expressive as if his aura has been dampened by an occasional shower, resembling a fog-sodden yard.

“I see nothing wrong with that.” His eyes are brimming with a thousand questions. Flinching and paling, he feels his long, dense shaggy masses of hair rise above his head, defying gravity. He places his hand over his blue shirt in a bid to conceal the one-rupee-coin-shaped coffee stain near the abdomen. Thankfully, Aarna hasn’t noticed the spot.

“Have you ever thought about how fashionable your grandfather is?” Aarna somberly composes her face. “In his traditional attire—dhoti and kurta—he looks fab. When he smokes the hookah, he looks like a zamindar that your ancestors were.” She continues, looking up into his face.