Wrap for the new age

The traditional South Indian lungi needs a bit of glamourisation to draw the younger generation to it

In the 1980s, whenever I visited my grandma’s home at Triplicane in Chennai, I admired the way my four uncles wore the lungi. Typically like Rajinikanth in the movies, kicking the left leg back and holding the hem of the lungi with the left hand.

Watching them doing it, I longed to wear one some day and strut around like a proud peacock. But it was not until my eighth standard that my strict dad allowed me to buy one.

It took me an hour to wear it perfectly as it kept slipping from my hip. So I dared not go out lest it become an embarrassment. After a week of practice, I stepped out of my home in Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore (now Bengaluru). I stopped by a couple of friend’s homes calling them out under some pretext just to reveal my colourful checked lungi.