Sartorial sense 038; sensibility

Clothes don8217;t make the man. True. But it seems clothes can unmake the man, going by Shivraj Patil8217;s case. His three changes of clothes on Black Saturday put him in a grey shade. Obviously, there was a mismatch between common sense and dressing sense. Under tragic circumstances, he found time to dress up again and again. Wasn8217;t that Nero fiddling as Rome burnt? Patil just could not measure the gravity of the situation and took it as another photo op. Thus he got a media dressing-down. It was only Govinda who could make a success of the mismatch, wearing red pants, purple jackets and crooning nonsensical lyrics in the 8217;90s.

If Patil became a victim of his own sartorial sense, we had suffered due to someone else8217;s dress sense. We always looked forward to history lessons, right from Class VI to X. The reason: our teacher, Yogmaya Kamboj, always dressed nattily. She translated into action what Vidur Neeti put in words: jita sabha vastravata with clothes, you can impress an assembly of people. And she had won our entire class over with her six-yard magic. Her impeccable Hindi, punctuality and her habit of replying to letters also left a mark. Whenever I sent her New Year greetings, she would make it a point to respond. This continued even during my college days. While other teachers needed to be asked if they had got the card, she was an exception.

Also exceptional was her collection of saris. A sari for every season. So much so, even when it rained she would turn up in a sari. We never saw her in a salwar kameez. She let out her sari secret when we reached Class X. 8220;The turn of each sari comes once a year,8221; she said.

8220;My God, 365 saris!8221; we exclaimed. Though she was no Sushmita Sen, and we, no Shah Rukh Khan in Main Hoon Na, who could study when a teacher with such a wardrobe was around? Now you know why I cut a sorry figure when it comes to history.