Two Yards of Luxury

The double mundu
(Credit: www.hanveev.com)

How long does it take a Malayali to abandon mundu as the attire of choice at home and switch to shorts and jeans? While the comfort afforded by clinging to a way of life in Kerala is priceless, practical considerations come into play sooner or later compelling the switch. Winter is an issue; nosy neighbors, another. These don’t matter if you are a couch potato. For others who like to move around, wearing a mundu can make stepping out into the yard or the deck a bit tricky. The mundu isn’t geared to protect you from the cold; quite the opposite. It allows the cooler air to circulate, which means you better change into a pair of pants if you want to pick up the mail on a freezing February day. While the summer looks welcoming of the mundu wearer, things can get dicey and downright dangerous if you have to mow the lawn or trim the hedges. Worse, being spotted outside in a mundu can attract stares from your neighbors, leading to the inevitable “Is that a skirt?” question. The stigma has lessened recently with the increased presence of the enigmatic full-body middle eastern getup.

Whatever the challenges wearing a mundu in America, in the year-round tropical climate of Kerala, mundu is indeed two yards of luxury that’s hard to beat. At its simplest, the mundu is a stretch of pure white cotton fabric, 2×1¼ meters, to be precise. The only adornment is a colorful border (kara). Wearing one is equally simple. First, wrap the mundu around the waist holding the upper corners in front and bring the upper right corner inside and over the edge on the left side. Second, tighten, fold, and tuck the upper left corner under the edge on the right side. Novices take note: this takes some practice, or else you are liable to suffer a wardrobe malfunction. But once you get it, it’s a breeze.

Some gird up with a belt, but for habitual mundu wearers this isn’t necessary. With proper tightening, folding, and tucking, a freshly starched and ironed mundu worn in the morning should stay in place till evening. A seeming drawback is the lack of pockets to keep the change, a pack of beedies, or the murukkan (a chewing pack consisting betel leaves, slaked lime, and crushed areca nut). This is easily remedied: the right corner tucked on the left side can be pulled up and expanded into a neat little pouch that can carry a fair assortment.

Kasavu mundu
(Credit: drizzles.in)

The double-ply or two-layered white mundu—simply called a “double”—is the standard against which other mundu versions are judged. A neatly pressed double with a modest kara is suitable for all formal and business casual occasions. The cream-colored double, sometimes called “kodi mundu,” is typically reserved for festive occasions. With a golden border (kasavu), the cream double is ceremonial wear, worn at weddings or on a visit to the temple or the church. For an otherwise egalitarian piece of clothing, kasavu has provided a loophole for injecting disparity into the garment equation. Kasavu is expensive, so the showy crowd goes for a wider and denser kara, risking elegance for plain ostentation.

The casual or workmanlike version of the mundu is the single-ply lungi. Much as with a necktie, anything is fair game for the lungi, color- and pattern-wise. A double requires upkeep: it’s worn washed, starched, and ironed. The lungi gives the benefits of wearing a mundu without the requirements of upkeep; no one ever irons a lungi.

Lungi also affords more leeway in the selection of underwear. A lungi’s color masks what’s underneath—it doesn’t shadow. A double, on the other hand, can be a tad translucent, calling for an extra dose of common sense, unless you want to be the butt of a joke, if you will forgive the pun. Many a wedding has been marred by the groom’s careless disregard for this simple rule: briefs or other fancy wear that skimps on fabric should be never paired with a double. Go for full-length white boxers that conceals without being obvious and you will preserve your dignity and the event’s decorum.

Mundu, worn in the fold up and tuck fashion

No talk about the merits of mundu would be complete without mentioning the madakkikuthu (fold up and tuck). This convenient rendering is achieved when the bottom end of the mundu is brought up halfway and wrapped with a tuck in the front. Legs are bared knee down, making some tasks, including brisk walking, easier. While convenient, madakkikuthu isn’t used indiscriminately. For the convenience comes at a cost: looking aggressive, disrespectful, or informal. Therefore, a gentleman unfolds the madakkikuthu to convey respect when meeting with ladies, teachers, or the elderly. Conversely, he folds up and tucks the mundu when confronting other men in an argument or dispute. Which is why, policemen, demanding respect usually not afforded them, bark “mundazhichideda!” (“unfold that tuck you scoundrel”) when questioning the unsuspecting bystander or passerby.

A move has been afoot to make a white shirt the respectable accompaniment to the double. This restriction is absurd. And it isn’t hard to figure who’s behind the absurdity—politicians. Regardless of ideology, they seem to hope that their prodigious load of sins can be whitewashed by this sartorial stunt. Happily, the Malayali public isn’t buying it. In fact, the trend is quite the opposite: brightly colored half-sleeves from crimson to blue have become popular at festive and ceremonial occasions.

A Malayali gentleman decked out in kodi mundu

But good sense does prevail occasionally, even among the politicians. They were quick to act in Tamil Nadu when a Chennai club denied entry to a mundu-wearing visitor. What prompted the club to this idiocy is unclear, but the politicians saw an expedient opportunity where they could be principled and populist. They swiftly passed a law making any restrictions on the mundu-wearing public a cognizable offense. Bravo!

As versatile as the mundu is, there are limitations. Climbing tropical trees, an essential task to harvest fruit such as mango and jackfruit, is hard wearing a mundu. Anyone attempting to do so confronts a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you don’t problem. You can’t climb a tree without a madakkikuthu. The mundu will get tangled with your legs and fall off while you are perched legs apart on two branches. But if you do climb with a madakkikuthu, you will be offending any decent person standing below.

Similarly, the mundu has limited potential as a sports garment. As a last ditch effort to prevent a mundu-wearing soccer forward from scoring a goal, opponents have been known to pull his mundu off. Playing shuttle badminton and volleyball while wearing a mundu severely limits acrobatic maneuvers such the smash play and the jump serve. Perhaps nothing though illustrates the mundu’s limitations better than an inter-village cricket match that became the talk of the town years back in Eravimangalam. The Kumarapuram versus Visham Moola¹ game is set for a cliffhanger ending. With one bowl left and Visham Moola batting, Kumarapuram is ahead by 3 runs. Kumarapuram’s ace spinner Pramod Variyam delivers a wicked leg spin. But the Visham Moola batsman is ready. He sweeps the ball over the silly mid off and starts running. Three runs and a draw looks a certain possibility. One run scored and he is going for the second. But midway into the second run, the batsman’s mundu comes off and falls to the ground. He hesitates, but completes the second run. That untimely wardrobe malfunction, however, costs Visham Moola the game. The Kumarapuram team celebrates the hard-fought victory by hoisting as a trophy the Visham Moola batsman’s mundu.

I gave up wearing mundu in the United States after my son was born. He treated my mundu as his personal swing rope and a hide and seek cloak. A mundu can only take so much pull and tug before it unfurls. I quickly adjusted to shorts and jeans and began to see their merits, better suited to the life in the U.S. Moving to a single-family house and the attendant increase in chores may have had something to do with it. Beyond that though, I began to see walking around in a mundu in this country as simply awkward. Yeah, yeah, free country, ethnic pride and all that, but still—awkward. Well, ridiculous really.

If you are in a mood to criticize, hold on, the story doesn’t end there. Because, conversely, I gave up wearing pants on my Kerala visits and switched to full-time mundu. I didn’t do it because wearing pants in Kerala is by any means awkward. Rather, I wanted an authentic experience during the few weeks I spent there on my visits. And nothing gives you the authentic experience of growing up in Kerala as donning a white double. Travels or bus trips were no obstacle; I wore a mundu on my side trips to Bangalore, Chennai, or the length and breadth of Kerala. So much so, a mundu became my “look” in Kerala. The one time I tried to renege on this tradition, I was harshly put down by an American—my daughter.

My alma mater, the KAU, was hosting a scientific workshop and I thought I will pay a visit to see what’s going on. To fit in with the younger crowd, I pulled out the only pair of pants I had with me, the jeans I had worn on my inbound trip. Donning the washed and pressed jeans with a plain blue shirt, I thought myself looking sufficiently cool as might be possible at the advanced age and stepped out into the hallway. My wife engrossed in the back issues of the Vanitha magazine and my daughter flipping through her mother’s smartphone, looked up.

“What are you wearing?” they asked almost together.

“Jeans and shirt.” “Why?” I asked.

My wife rolled her eyes. “Go back and wear a mundu,” she admonished.

“Acha,” my daughter said. “You look ridiculous!”

I went back and changed into a white double.

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1 The peculiar name, literally translated "Poison Corner," comes from a hooch tragedy that occured in the area.^↩