Gowns and shoes.

India is huge country. There is something or the other happening in every corner of the country.It could be a natural calamity, bomb blasts or insurgencies.It could also be dramatic scenes,orchestrated by our entertaining politicians providing the Prozac to my prosaic existence.

My attention was so riveted on the Sania soap [the dust has settled now] that the interesting news trumpeted by all TV news channels,that of a minister throwing away the ridiculously colourful convocation gown and just stopped short of jumping and stomping on it , blasting away at the archaic colonial hang up of wearing such gowns , that it eludes my memory as to when it took place Before ,or in between the torrid triangular tourney!

The news channels are having a field day . There is simply no dearth of news.With instant visuals and the alarming Breaking News stickers running every second of every day , what would have been a small news tucked away in a obscure corner of the newspaper and quickly flicked over a decade back , has now become a 'must see 'news item along with scorching debates by live wire pundits pitted against each other in pitched battles!

Now to get back to the gown throwing tantrum , I do find a point there.Because I have suffered several suffocating days in summers [ which is the only season in Chennai] in those awfully morbid black gowns and the choking collar an advocate is called upon to don ,to present ,argue his or her case,yada, yada [etc] in the courts of law .

The conditions of men is more pitiable . Apart from the mandatory gown, they have to wear a thick drab black coat over a full sleeves shirts buttoned up to to the collar, as well as tie , shoes and socks!

Only a few courts in the Madras High Court complex are air conditioned . All the rest ----lower courts within the complex and most Moffusil courts are not and are small and dingy with dangerously swirling rickety fans overhead and are packed to capacity with lawyers and litigants.

Rivers of sweat flow freely and tinder's of tempers are lit at the slightest provocation .The sight of tall and hefty lawyers, swooshing around their black gowns furiously and swooping down on their prey [ clients]is so unnerving that it reminds one of the count Dracula on the prowl!

I am all for discarding and dumping these 'black' vestiges of colonial rule .This would be a great relief to all lawyers and would make them appear more human and approachable.

Another totally torturous hang over of our colonial past ---is stuffing all school going children 's feet into socks and shoes in a city and state that has no winter at all.

I am looking forward to the day when the education minister hurls away, shoes and socks in a function of a school he is invited to preside . That day would perhaps herald the deliverance of all school children from this feet bandaging [ reminiscent of aristocratic Chinese women 's fettish to keep their feet tiny in earlier times] and they could all happily wear chappals and light sandals to schools , more suited to our climate .