Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1885 — Costumes in India. [ARTICLE]

Costumes in India.

For grace and elegance the Parai woman far excels her Mahratta rival. The Parsi costume is very near to what is worn by ladies in Bengal, only the Parsi sari is thicker and invariably made of silk, besides their being an undergarment, while the upper part of the body is fully and handsomely covered with divers chemises, jackets, and bodices of ample length and breadth, as well as of suitably varied and costly texture. Her headdress is the only blot to the otherwise fine array of the Parsi girl. Her head seems to be carefully shaved and chalked and plastered, because it is smoothly and lightly covered by a piece of snowwhite linen to keep off the assaults of black Ahriman. And the Parsi lady’s noble and graceful figure is thus surmounted by a whitened dome under which is concealed the wealth and luxuriance of her streaming locks, said to constitute the glory of a woman’s form. The women of Sindh, where the zenana is observed with ten-fold rigor, and the women of the Punjab put on what may be safely styled a sort of Mohammedan costume. The huge flowing trousers, tightened at the ankles; the loose coL ored tunic, serving the purpose of gown as well as body covering; the long detached piece of chudder which drapes the whole figure from head to foot, possess essentially a Mussulman aspect —a fact which is easy to understand, seeing that Mohammedans have been most powerful in these provinces. Hindu women in general are not particularly anxious to cover their feet. The Bengali lady goes about barefooted. The Mahratta beauty wears the traditional anklets, about five pounds of pure massive silver, putting on occasionally indigenous leathern footgear of extraordinary weight and dimensions, called shoes by courtesy, and of equal service to both sexes. The Parsi woman incases her feet in satin slippers, and the Punjabee girl of the period draggles behind her a pair of tattered something which raises all the dust and echo of the streets of Lahore.