Beau Travail*

Tender Co Denim

Clothes for men often tend to be boring. There is the suit but let’s not forget that it’s easy to make jokes about suits, it is after all shorthand for the salaried worker tied to the office and a palette of grey, grey and more grey. Sure there are all kinds of suits and perhaps some men dream of being kitted out in a bespoke one from Saville Row or whatever it is that is considered the epitome of tailoring. Still, even the exquisitely tailored suit is like an exceedingly rich Kanchipuram saree. You admire the workmanship, you understand the underlying science of structure and weave but it is also so good an indicator of dull, stultifying status that once worn it is immediately uninteresting. That is the garment itself is a thing of beauty but on a person it moves beyond this and is both exquisite yet supremely dead.

The choices for men wanting to do things a little differently are limited. Most creatives end up in a uniform of their own; the tee and jeans and casual footwear. But each of these items is of course an equally good indicator of conspicuous consumerism. In fact at no time in history has a man so literally spelled out his state of mind as on the contemporary T-shirt. Irony prevails and its not too hard to see that this is the uniform for any number of professionals in the media and tech industries. There is a certain charm to its slackness and it has a good deal of indie cred but it’s not a garment for grownups. You do see 40 year olds in it but something is lost in translation.

Here and there you might see a man who is the new hipster in more relaxed linen and a scarf but it’s a rare sighting, regrettable because it’s a far more elegant and grown-up look than the guy aiming to look like an Apple employee.

Of course there are a whole lot of men who fall into unnameable categories and don't particularly care about clothes. Take scientists who wear the cheapest jeans around and the T-shirt from the last conference attended (Big Bang Theory’s clothing department has it all wrong). And there are people who do a lot of physical or menial work and require workwear, which is often a polyester uniform with a fluorescent vest often added on. It is unfortunate that polyester has become the fabric for the masses. It is convenient but can never achieve the purity and beauty of workwear of yore. I might be romanticising here a bit but the rough cottons, hemps and flaxes that were used even in the last century have a sense of being of the earth, a sense of honesty. They may be roughly made, patched and used throughout a lifetime but they are imbued with the Japanese sense of wabi-sabi, a worn beauty that is enhanced with incessant use. As an example, my teenage counterpart to the boyfriend shirt was a much used dad shirt and I still remember my disappointment when my father’s uniform was no longer an open weave OG (olive green) of natural fibre but made of polyester. Likewise my great grandfather had a couple of veshtis that he hand washed and maintained impeccably; though they were clean and white they were never, even remotely, the over treated brilliant white cotton of today which is loud in its whiteness. But times have changed and so the ordinary, workaday world belongs to polyester and the like.

Somewhere on the margins of men’s fashion, things can be a bit more interesting. Interpretations of workwear is an ongoing theme – I had blogged on this last year. The rustic workwear of yore is now an affectation and has little to do with adapatibility to the nature of work, nevertheless to my mind it is far more aesthetic than anything that I have discussed before. Though tailored, there is an ease to the garments, this no doubt stems from its workwear inspiration-there is not the straitjacketing , the fitting that office work implies. Plus the natural fibres suggest breathability, the natural dyes impart a more soothing look. My recent copy of Selvedge (which inspired this post) features clothing by Tender Co., though inspired by British workwear there seems to be a degree of Japanese inspiration too. It is of course contemporary featuring as it does a lot of denim and yes, the printed T-shirt. Plus it ties in with the recent handmade movement which is smaller, more intimate, more organic and also makes visible the process by which clothes are made. It is also more expensive of course. Like khadi or pure cotton, workwear has lost its roots and is now meant for the urban aesthete. Yet it has not lost its innate beauty.

Can you work in a namoto?

While many workwear inspired pieces are formal and classic, occasionally you will also find something much more on the edges like lastwear. To quote them: “We make strange, wonderful and durable clothing and accessories. We weave stories, fight corporate colonialism and believe that sustainability is the new grand narrative.” This with their steampunk and gothic inspirations puts it in the realm of the political and anarchic - albeit in line with 21st century norms, it is more through clothes than incendiary pamphlets. The picture with this paragraph has its roots in workwear, inspired as it is by the hakama, supposedly as adapted by the shipbuilders of Empire. It is a voluminous trouser kind of garment with deep side pockets. So workwear and Japan again. Not a look for the workaday life of today but interesting in its origins.

The philosophy of workwear is that it be comfortable, durable and one not think too much about it. Much of the workwear inspired clothes today are a result of conscious thought on what one chooses to wear. and how they represent our selves The argument may be made that it is for pretentious tossers searching for authenticity, that polyester is a more honest and accurate reflection of our work world. Still, once in a while you look at a piece and it is truly sublime and intimately connected to history. And you see a sudden transcendental beauty to it you will not find elsewhere.

*French for good work, beauiful work and the like.

Fam-Com in the time of Family

On my visit to Chennai I picked up a couple of Tamil movies for my grandfather. Most of the films were from the 50s and early 60s and I had heard of them through my mother. My grandfather had seen all the films but he was more than happy to give them a second spin. We first watched பாமா விஜயம் (Bama Vijayam) late into the night; though a bit dated in its sentiments it was a competent enough film with a few laughs along the way.

The next morning we fell to discussing Tamil films of the mid 50s (about which my grandfather of course knew a fair bit) and came to the general consensus that as a rule they were superior to their better known Hindi counterparts. Part of this is because of a theatrical tradition in Tamil Nadu, பாமா விஜயம் for e.g. boasts a few actors who had been trained in a theatrical tradition and knew how to deliver lines with confidence, my grandfather in fact knew the theatre troupes that the actors belonged to. As an e.g. Nagesh is sort of the Johnny Walker of the South but with a much expanded acting range. And while the nature of acting has changed and the actor of the 50s is far too mannered for our times, the training and conventions they follow are all too visible. The other giveaways are the scripts, which are a lot tighter and internally consistent than the average Hindi film of the same era. Additionally they place a great deal of emphasis on the beauty, ambiguity and vagaries of language. Admittedly, some of this is lost on me but it is not hard to see that the films are for an audience appreciative of both language and its manipulation. Bar the songs, this is rarely to be found in a 1950s Hindi film.

Like many other Tamil movies of the time, பாமா விஜயம் is a family drama or perhaps more correctly a family comedy (the fam-com!). Perhaps I am wrong but it seems a genre native to South India, as sturdy and long lasting in its conventions as the romantic comedy. It almost seems to come to life in the 50s as a genre, many earlier Tamil films that I have seen appear to be historicals and mythologicals. Many of the films deal with a multi-generational family set-up with defined roles for all members. No matter what course the film follows, all require the rehabilitation of the paterfamilias role and a return to family order. Both the strain of family bonds and their ultimate cohesiveness are explored though the catalyst is often a familiar outsider like a faithful family retainer. In one way or the other the genre still lives on, in particular in the many serials that choke TV channels, indicating that at least the ideal of family life in India has remained relatively unchanged.

The discussion on Tamil cinema seemed to energise my grandfather and we both left the table in the happy haze that lingers after an interesting discussion. On my return to Sydney, he watched a few more and we talked about them over the phone. I meant to go back and talk a little more of the movies he had seen and the theatre groups that existed in Tamil Nadu. That is not to be.

In the last years of his life my grandfather wrote incessantly to me, perhaps he didn’t want his thoughts to be forgotten. Those discussions are now stilled. There is an element of sadness in that but there is also much in a person’s life that is unsaid. My grandfather lived long but even a long life has its silences and is ultimately rendered ephemeral. What my grandfather thought is now fragmented - lodged here and there in a few of us but also scattered to the winds. And so it is and should be.

A Few Paintings

Hogarth Galleries has shut shop.  Which is a bit sad as I used to enjoy going there once in awhile and they also had decent newsletters.  Here are a few paintings from recent newsletters.  The first painting below is from the Northern Territory and is a "desert painting".  The paintings below that are from Cape York. Samantha Hobson was a well known part of the original Lockhart River Gang (she was successful enough to leave the Gang and work on her own and often paints more contemporary themes) while Denise Fruit, also from the same region, was shown as a part of an exhibition called Old Girls, Young Grandmothers.

Separately, the design collaboration between aboriginal and Kashmiri artists appears to be flourishing. Saw plenty of crewel work cushions, papier mache boxes and the like in the better tourist shops yesterday. No idea about its authenticity though Better World Arts, whose label appears on the products, presumably has some kind of check.

Lines

Spell Cheque

I am neither a pedant nor a language Nazi.  For no language is "pure" and spellings change. As an example, early English language texts are often incomprehensible.  So change is inevitable.  And I like language to be inventive. Plus pot, kettle, black - I make plenty of mistakes too. Nevertheless the amount of linguistic confusion in newspapers and blogs and personal communications gives me pause for thought.  Many in fact appear in papers of repute.  Plus it is not a simple case of misspelling but the use of words which mean something else altogether.  Which means a new language is afoot. So I put together a list over a week. Par exemple.:

a. wiles instead of whiles;

b. die instead of dye (more common than one would think, in a century die will indicate dye and the useless e will die to give us the dying of clothes);

c. looser where loser is intended (very popular with the young. Even if it leaves you scratching your head as to what part of the person is now looser and once was tight);

d. The rain was apparently poring. Maybe the u just got washed away;

e. Unfarely, fare is now a multipurpose word. Occasionally though bus fairs go up;

f. Rearing fouls puts one in a fowl mood; and

g. Films have trailors these days.

Sometimes it is a honest mistake.  But people cavalierly persist with it. For e.g. I have been living in Sidney for a long time.  Even though each email of mine offers the polite correction that the city is better known as Sydney. I sometimes fear that I may forget the alphabet "y" too. 

While most of the above examples are not from India (surprise!), my few weeks in India made me realise that proper spelling and grammar have long departed it's shores.  I can excuse the Indian spelling of glamour (it's glammer) on the grounds that its more akin to the way we pronounce the word.  I would rejoice in Indian English too - if it made sense. Alas a phrase like "I was dancing in full abundance in the rain" (attributed to Ms. Rai) only tells me that such rejoicing is premature.  Neither can I excuse the country's shoddy school books,  I would be honest to goodness surprised if anyone emerged fluent in the English language solely on the basis of a school education.   Government-speak and business-speak both exemplify the Indian ability to string obscure words together (a bonus if they are correctly spelled) to emerge with a sentence that means nothing at all.  An immersion in this is so disorienting that you begin to doubt your own grip on the language.

Thankfully some red wine and a curl up with Strunk & White (made more beloved by Maira Kalman's illustrations) offers a small cure for the disorientation.  Never mind that wiki notes that the book  is antiquated and peevish.  Some things just call for these sentiments.

A Tree in Rajawadi

Grandpa Tells a Story

My grandparents’ house is quite old. In the time it came into being, my grandparents must have been one among many migrants in Mumbai. Along with many others they ended up in this  piece of allotted land that was reclaimed from marsh. Everything I know of it before the 70s is mere anecdote and by all accounts it was just a very ordinary cottage, the kind that might have dotted many workers colonies in India. I, always willing to attach romantic notions to the rough and the simple, prefer to retain my assumptions that it was charming, semi-rural and devoid of even a slick of middle class aspiration. The houses were set out in rows and many shared walls with the neighbouring house. It was life on the fringes of a big city, the amenities a distance away or still to come. As lives and incomes changed, many were refurbished.  Additional rooms were added as families expanded. Small strips of gardens ran alongside houses and most were perhaps, like my grandparents', very Indian gardens that housed sacred plants and fruit trees. This is the house I remember from my childhood visits. I have fragmented memories of that time – the playtime of sleepy afternoons, cricket in the lanes and the blaze of roadside anthimantharai (mirabilis jalapa). And of course being doted on and utterly spoiled by my grandfather with many stolen visits to eat forbidden foods. Then again as lives changed the houses were rebuilt, as my grandparents' was. Old patches of garden have given way to indifferent landscaping. Homes now conform to modern ideas and the low structures, the whitewash and asbestos roofs have long disappeared. Along with that much of the next generation has disappeared too, in search of their own fortunes. A community exists but the bonds neighbours build by sharing lanes and walls for a long period of time is slowly vanishing. My grandparents and their friends are perhaps the last of this time.

Whenever I visit my grandparents’ house, I think of its history and that of my own family – the people I have been closest to all my life. This time too it was no different. Inside the house there was a sense of misery, a feeling that the promise of happiness was not even a faint scent in the air. But outside the minutiae of life continued. Asoka trees still frame the window of my grandfather’s room. Squirrels  constantly run up and down the mango tree. Indifferent as the landscaping is, a few ixora plants bloom here and there. Snails leave iridescent trails. The rain pelts down, drips off the walls, the leaves. The cats stroll in and out of the house, perhaps drawn by the off chance of a squirrel meal. I think of these as constants but of course new life has pushed through the unseen, underlying debris of the past.  Then somehow my grandfather became part of all that has been swept away.

Grief is a simple thing; we all experience it the same way. I can say I lost a grandfather and everyone will understand what that might mean. I can write about him, about the life we shared, but it is of little interest to anyone except the two of us. It simply suffices to say, "my grandfather died and I am very sad", a kind of footnote to the way my grandfather would describe the events of his life – as if it was nothing, just events punctuating two points. Even though the journey he made was long and complex, even though he would most want to know what I had to say about his life and demise. But I will say this. When my mother was young, my grandfather used to enliven their travels by picking out random people in the crowd and recounting stories about them. Many were so funny that my mother would collapse helpless with laughter. Somehow this encapsulates the world view he provided us with – both that the world outside of family is interesting and to be explored and that a light touch must be brought to life. Accompanying that light touch was also the grinch in him which no doubt lives on as a bit of darkness in our own personas.

Inexorably, slowly my grandparents’ house will also vanish, a victim of time like everything else. Even the spirits that surround it will eventually leave. For the moment my grandmother, frail as she is, remains a last link. So the house stands - forlorn but still sturdy. It's music is muffled these days but like my grandfather’s voice I hear it often. And the music, the voices of the past fill me with a deep sadness but are also exceedingly pleasant.

For my grandfather, R. Muthuswamy (1922-2010)

Postscript: The title of this post references an earlier one.
And my grandfather's own writings here.

Trip in Pictures

A few pictures from my visit.  Taken in Mumbai and Chennai.

Leaf Kolam for Rainy Day, Ghatkopar

Rainy Day Garden, Ghatkopar

Pigeon and its eggs, Kandivali

Nagas, Temple at Chennai

Pink House, Chennai

                                           

Endplay

"It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought." - P.G. Wodehouse

Back in Sydney after a few weeks in India.  The pattern of my visits has been similar over the past few years perhaps because more than one visit has been precipitated by a family crisis. The same checkered pattern of the city seen from the air, the same mosaic of apartments, trees, shops that flash past as we make trips around the suburbs, the catching up with family, the random rushed visit to meet the odd friend or visit another town.  This time was no different though a shade of exhaustion has crept in with this repetitive pattern.

I knew my uncle well, I didn't know him at all.  Perhaps this can be said of so many people we hold dear.  People we know are familiar, most often we don't even question the degree of attachment we feel for them.  Then suddenly they are not there and the world is a different place.  It eventually resumes its sameness but this sameness is subtly marked, changed. 

The funeral pyre singes those who stand around.  But where the flame is at its highest it is perhaps purer and calmer, mingling with the air of those who have already gone.  I think this of my uncle and his siblings who are no longer there. Then again my uncle was a restless man who always returned home.  In the past few weeks, on some days I have seen him contemplative and hunched in a washed out, rainy corner of the house.  A cigarette as ever is perched in his mouth and he is as enigmatic, remote and dear in death as in life. 

Sydney Noir

Recently taken pictures around the Opera House. The day itself was the coldly brilliant day common in a Sydney winter. These were taken at end of day and of course worked upon to heighten the darkness. 

A book, A movie, the usual

It's been quite busy of late and though I have bits and pieces of things I want to write about, I don't have the time or energy to bash out the words on my computer.  Friday evening inertia and the all pervasive cold has made any thought impossible but I will do my best :-)

The daily train commute has been occupied by a reading of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Quartet. It is a sweeping account of the beginnings of Indonesian nationalism and I wish I had the time to read it at one sitting as one may have done over a summer holiday.  The fact that it was orally narrated and then written much after the events took place gives it a sense of distance and perspective. I hope to blog on it at a later date.

My patience with reading doesn't extend much to films.  These days even a 90 minute film feels inordinately long, no doubt exacerbated by the grazing on the Internet every few minutes that we all succumb to these days (Laura Miller wrote in Salon that she in fact barely watches a film before jumping on to imdb to check the details on the film and then continuing the back and forth, on reading that I had a wry smile of recognition).  I have been trying to watch a film every weekend, mainly because I have a ginormous amount of bought and unviewed DVDs threatening to overwhelm my place.  So I watched Passion Fish - all 2+ hours of it - uninterrupted.  Given the length, it is meandering but I muchly enjoyed it. As a film on female friendship, it is way above the likes of Thelma and Louise or the traditional tearjerker like Beaches.  The lead actress is very good and so is Alfre Woodard. Bonus, Alfre Woodard is astonishingly beautiful-I can't think of anyone I found this attractive in a long time. And there is a youngish David Strathairn, assuredly hotter than the bog standard leading man! And it has a lovely Cajun/Zydeco soundtrack.  

Half the year has passed by in what seems to be unseemly haste.  After a long spell of summer, it's been really cold here. Normally I enjoy the Sydney winter but this time around I am quite tempted to pack the Buru Quartet and take myself to a Bali beach!