The clothes wear us

In retrospect, I was an odd kid. Well, let's face it, it is a bit unusual for an eight-year-old boy to aspire to become a school teacher, especially when other boys wanted to become police officers, doctors, pilots, aeronautical engineers (though neither their parents, nor they knew what it entailed), and dons even!

I remember the look of utter disappointment on the face of my father's boss, who had come over for dinner, when he, with great enthusiasm, had asked me what I wished to become when I grew up. I, with equal enthusiasm, said I wanted to become a teacher like my Alka ma'am. "A teacher?! That's it?" he grimaced and looked at my father. My mother smiled awkwardly and said, "He is too young to decide these things, Verma bhaisahab. Did you try the paneer-pakoras?" And off I was sent to play.

That was when I was in grade four. I am living my dream now; I teach at a school. But after all these years what hasn't changed is the response I get when I tell people what I do. It ranges from mild shock to explicit disapproval. The choice would have seemed perfectly normal, and even preferable, if I were a woman.

As I made my way inside the school, I realised there were other battles to be fought in the classrooms and staff-rooms. Virginia Woolf once wrote, "Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us… There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking."

The clothes I wore to work become a subject of staff-room conversations. My colourful kurtas and salwars invite knowing-smiles and raised eyebrows. Some find them a novelty; some find them amusing; and some find them inappropriate. There is indeed nothing inappropriate about my sartorial choices, except that, like my career- choice, they too are gender-nonconforming.

A senior and well-meaning colleague once decided to address the elephant in the room and, after hesitating for a bit, asked me where I buy my kurtas from. For a moment I thought he was interested in buying a few himself.

"Do you wish to buy one, sir?" I asked. He said he won't mind wearing them, but he can't wear them to school "obviously". "But, sir," I said, "they are very comfortable and weather-friendly. Besides, our female colleagues wear kurtas and salwars too. I mean, it's not against the school policy or anything, is it?" "Err…," he said, "that's the thing you see, they are women. It's okay for them, but for us, men, it seems a bit...you know..."

Without completing his thought, he walked away smiling at me warmly, but, of course, I knew what he meant. He meant that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to fit into the mould. You have to wear formal trousers and checked shirts to look like a teacher, never mind your subject knowledge or skills.

Experiences like these have made me realise how patriarchy takes its toll on men in inconspicuous ways. They impose strict expectations on men, failing which could invite anything from derision to disdain.