The shalwar-kameez daily reminds me that dress is more than mere clothing – it can also be a passport to generating subtle chaos.
New Delhi: Out of a mixture of comfort, contrariness, and mild theatrical instinct, I abandoned jeans and trousers nearly three decades ago, and began wearing the shalwar-kameez – a choice I have maintained ever since.
Personally, the outfit was not only loose and breathable enough for North Indian summers but also surprisingly warm in winter. It was different, intriguing, and quietly commanding, its many folds exuding panache and offering a sense of ease, casualness and individuality that even the fanciest shirt and trousers could never provide.
However, what I had not anticipated was that this sartorial choice would, quite unintentionally, make me a walking, faintly alarming geopolitical statement – looking vaguely like an Islamic militant to anyone I met, at home or abroad. Widely associated with Pakistan, the shalwar-kameez has, in recent decades, become closely identified globally with the Taliban, for whom the attire evolved into an austere Islamist uniform, where even minor deviations in its mandated form or style could invite punishment.
Consequently, my shalwar-kameez rarely passed unnoticed – on streets, in bazaars, at restaurants, and drawing rooms alike. It drew furtive looks, polite queries, and occasional speculation about where I “really” belonged, as if the garment itself required an explanation of my antecedents.
Adding a pakol – a soft, rolled-up woollen Afghan cap that sits like a baker’s headgear atop the head – in winter completed my flowing ensemble, which, combined with my now grey bushy beard, often triggered a flicker of initial alarm wherever I went. It was also a reminder that clothing, when paired with facial hair and unhelpful global headlines about the Taliban, was capable of acquiring strategic and ideological meaning entirely at variance with the wearer’s true identity.
That same ripple of curiosity – and a faint but palpable unease at first glance – followed me from the streets into New Delhi’s conservative South Block and nearby Sena Bhawan, which I tramped for many years while meeting military officials, including service chiefs, during my stint as a defence reporter for a UK-based military magazine. For the uniformed establishment, my shalwar-kameez, aligned in their minds with Pakistan and Islamic identity, disrupting the visual code of officialdom and ensuring that my clothes announced my arrival well before I spoke or introduced myself.
But the true test of my socially hazardous shalwar-kameez invariably played out in military messes – temples of order where shirts are tucked, ties in place, shoes polished, and even laughter stands at attention when the commanding officer walks in.
Into this majestic world I would frequently wander, often mistakenly invited, fully aware I might be thrown out, but relishing the theatre it triggered each time, in a bid to test military rigidity and inflexibility. On innumerable occasions, the routine played out the same way: within minutes of my arrival, a flurry of attendants would appear, buzzing around amid furious whispers.
The concerned mess secretary would then furtively sidle up to my host, whispering excitedly in his ear, followed by a long, pregnant silence when everyone around me looked embarrassed and apologetic. Thereupon, my host, looking thoroughly uncomfortable, would gently explain that my dress was not permitted in the mess and, apologising profusely, ask me to leave – which I invariably did.
What fascinated me in this expulsion ritual was not the refusal of entry, which is fair enough in institutions run on dress – codes but the sheer excitement – bordering on panic – that a shalwar-kameez generated. Senior military officers, many of whom had commanded divisions, aircraft carriers and fighter squadrons in battle, and negotiated ceasefires, were suddenly undone by six yards of stitched, billowing cloth, defiantly casual and unmilitary in cut.
“Why this dress?” many of my military hosts often asked, half-amused, half-suspicious. “Because it’s comfortable and different,” I would always reply, but not all were convinced, always fearful that a shalwar-kameez, topped with a pakol, automatically turned the wearer into a security threat.
Before Partition, the shalwar-kameez was not regarded as exclusively Islamic and was widely worn across north-western regions of the undivided subcontinent – especially Punjab, Sindh, Kashmir, and the Frontier belt, not only by Muslims but also Hindus and Sikhs alike.
The attire’s origins, however, lay beyond South Asia, in Persian, Central Asian, and Turkic dress traditions, originating around the early medieval period or between the 6th and 10th centuries CE. The shalwar, for its part, evolved amongst nomadic and cavalry cultures, where ease of movement and comfort on horseback were essential.
The kameez – a knee-length tunic or shirt – on the other hand, which derives its name from the Arabic and Persian word qamīs, was common across West and Central Asia. Both garments entered the Indian subcontinent over centuries of cultural exchange, trade, migration, and the influence of Turkic, Afghan, and Mughal courts and their respective armies. And, eventually over time, the ensemble was locally adapted in fabric, cut, and style, becoming embedded in everyday life across diverse communities, appreciated for its comfort, practicality, and adaptability to climate and custom.
Innumerable amusing stories, albeit of doubtful authenticity, abound regarding the shalwar-and-kameez – many far too risqué to print. But one such tellable tale focuses on both the sheer volume and girth of the shalwar and the fearsome reputation of Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s conquering Khalsa armies in the early 19th century.
One oft-repeated version has it that when the Maharaja’s marauding troops swept through a village near Peshawar during one of their conquering sprees, some local Pathans hastily donned shalwars and draped shawls over their heads, hoping to pass themselves off as women and evade the attention of the formidable Sikh soldiers.
The disguise worked, as one fearsome but noble Sikh soldier glanced at a row of these “ladies” in shalwars, bowed politely, and moved on. He is then said to have remarked to a fellow soldier that the village was “unusually blessed,” since all its women sported beards.
This apocryphal lesson in the power of dress – and the audacity it can evoke-has stayed with me through the years.
Even on frequent trips abroad, I stubbornly wore shalwar-kameez and a pakul, refusing to switch to trousers or a suit. Arriving in London like this often sparked small, memorable moments at Heathrow: after the visa counter, policemen at the exit would pause, look quizzical, then wave me through with near-ceremonial courtesy, as if saying, “Welcome to England, Sir. Anything we can do?” I would glide past with an imperious wave, confident that eccentricity worn with conviction commanded deference – even from an English Bobby.
Thereafter, for years, I would walk into the offices of an exceedingly conservative English newspaper, for which I was the India correspondent, dressed in flowing folds and, of course, a pakol. It certainly raised eyebrows, but in that uniquely English way – where surprise and comment are expressed through microscopic changes in facial muscles rather than words – nobody remarked on my attire.
Tea was offered, and India’s coverage was discussed, but my clothes were treated like slightly exaggerated punctuation. Even the succession of impeccably suited ultra-conservative editors-in-chief, to whom I paid ritual obeisance, remained entirely unfazed by my shalwars, accepting them as just another harmless eccentricity of abandoned empire.
Just as my newspaper staff quietly treated my shalwar’s as a bygone relic, so too did some of my hostesses in England, encountering them with equal parts fascination and bemusement. They would watch, wide-eyed, as I tossed the garment into their washing machines, but the real amusement came when I hung it out on their lines to dry in the summer sun, the fabric billowing and twisting like sails on a ship. Questions and laughter followed in equal measure: How do you iron these? How do you fold them? How do you even wear them? Simple at home and taken for granted, the shalwar suddenly became a delightful, conversational puzzle abroad.
But my most memorable shalwar-kameez episode occurred across the Atlantic in 2004, on US presidential election night, during a freewheeling drive from San Francisco to New York with a fellow Sikh companion, also clad in shalwar-kameez and topped with a pakol. Late that November night, our odyssey brought us to Jackson Hole – one of then-US Vice President Dick Cheney’s residences, and the very place where he had chosen to cast his vote in that election.
By sheer accident, we chose a modest diner which, it turned out, had also been designated as the chow stop for Cheney’s vast Secret Service security contingent. The entire place was packed with black suited men with earpieces and suspicious bulges in their jackets, clearly packing more than just bulky cell phones. Into this sea of vigilance walked two shalwar-kameez-clad outsiders – my companion and I – sporting Pakols, as if we had taken a wrong turn near the Khyber Pass and overshot it by several thousand miles, only to arrive in this particular Jackson Hole diner.
The effect was instantaneous but menacingly muted. No alarms rang, no guns were drawn, yet a subtle ripple passed through the Secret Service agents in the café: conversations paused, and multiple pairs of eyes followed us to our table with professional curiosity.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then one of the earpiece brigade – a wall-to-wall Secret Service agent – drifted over and simply said, “You gentlemen seem… quite far from home.” By then, we had realised where we had landed, and hastily assured him that we were merely travellers in search of dinner rather than politics, a sentiment apparently reinforced by our clothing. Mercifully, he seemed satisfied with our response, and the diner returned to its prior level of near normalcy.
Encounters like that at the diner – though usually of a far lesser intensity – were a recurring theme whenever my shalwars crossed international borders. In the US, for instance, I invariably gave my shalwars to the laundry to be washed, starched, and ironed – but each visit was dramatic, to say the least.
On one such occasion in New York, I was standing in a long queue at a laundry, when my turn finally came. The young woman at the counter picked up my shalwar, unfolded it to its full and generous six-yard span, and, to the growing amusement of those behind me, held it up like a massive banner and, understandably, asked what on earth the garment was.
Uneasily, I could sense heads in the queue behind me swivelling left and right, tracking its width like spectators at a tennis match. “Indian trousers,” I mumbled and swiftly retrieved my shalwar from its elevated position. She accepted the explanation – but with a scrutinising glance that suggested I had just unveiled a minor engineering marvel rather than a humble garment.
Thereafter, in what can only be described as an act of large garment tax, she charged me extra for what was clearly, in her judgment, an audacious piece of foreign clothing. I paid with a smile, quietly resigned to the fact that, in the West, my shalwars would always attract more attention than they deserved.
Meanwhile, back home, I’m forever assailed by many with the obvious question, usually delivered with prosecutorial intensity: “Why not just wear a kurta-pyjama like everyone else?”
The short answer to that is that a kurta-pyjama is clothing, while a shalwar-kameez is an experience. A pyjama is merely a pair of trousers trying hard to look respectable, while a shalwar, by contrast, is simply free, flamboyant and fearless. Its commodious folds, brimming with audacity and eccentricity, suggest its wearer might at any moment mount a horse, brave a desert storm, lead a caravan or set off on some wildly improbable adventure.
The shalwar-kameez daily reminds me that dress is more than mere clothing – it can also be a passport to generating subtle chaos. And sometimes, the world simply needs a shalwar-wearer: someone to shake things up, defy convention, and stride through life with audacious confidence, preferably topped with a pakol.
This article went live on February seventh, two thousand twenty six, at zero minutes past six in the evening.
The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
