So much heat has been
generated on the Jainsem recently with the infamous incident at Delhi Golf Club
where a Khasi lady was asked to leave as her traditional attire was found
unsuitable by uninformed Club officials. I am reminded how excited I was to
find the Jainsem still in fashion when I went to Shillong after a hiatus of
thirty years. And how it became the
subject of my first radio programme there. I dug up the piece below from my journal
of 2012.
Shillong
rolled out a purple carpet for me that summer of 2012. All the way up from
Barapani. Masses of purple clouds on the treetops, a gentle purple rain as the
petals fluttered down…pooling into soft purple rugs beneath. The jacaranda was
in full bloom. As if to welcome me back. After thirty years. Back from Delhi on
a two-year tenure transfer.
From
my “Room on the Roof”* of All India Radio’s North Eastern Service, I could look
out on a hill side flecked with the same purple. From my office window I was looking
straight across a hollow into the windows of Saint Mary’s College, where an
18-year-old had gazed out from a classroom once.
It
is good to be back, I told the ghost of that girl. And turned away from the window
to take stock of my new assignment. Content generation for the English and
Hindi women’s programmes on radio. But how and where would one begin? What are
the trends and topics of this town, of the North-east? Who would be my talkers,
my experts? How was I to find them? I knew not a single soul in town. Assailed
by waves of doubt, I decided to go for a walk.
Ambling
past the ornate gates of Rajbhavan, my feet took me around a bend of the Ward’s
Lake – as green and serene as I remembered it. I crossed the old tea planters’
clubhouse, paused to admire the gracious proportions of a period church, and
then found myself among the teeming crowds of Police Bazaar.
My
eyes were making a note of the changes. Gone were many of the classic Assam
type houses –nestled in a garden with hedges – with their bright red tin roofs,
chimneys, gurgling rainwater pipes distinctive windows with a profusion of
glass panes, so typical of Shillong once. Ugly Lego blocks of newer
constructions were conspiring to block out the sky everywhere.
Change
is the only constant, I tell myself. And then I see something that hasn’t changed!
Fluttering and flapping in the sharp breeze, they crowd into my vision. Like so
many butterflies. In jewelled tints and pastel hues. Bold geometric motifs and
soft floral patterns. I notice them in swelling numbers in the busy lanes of
police Bazaar. The jainsem—traditional dress of the khasi women—is still very
much in vogue!
Here
is a topic, I tell myself. This unique, attractive, practical garment—a dress for
all seasons. And all reasons. Made simply of two strips of rectangular cloth,
tied crosswise over both the shoulders and dropping neatly down to a little
above the ankles.
 |
| AIR Shillong staff proudly sporting the Jainsem |
Meghalaya,
so rich in lore and legend, would throw up one on this dress from ancient
times, I am convinced.
Dr
Anita Panda, acclaimed teacher, author and broadcaster, would later put
together a much appreciated radio talk on the legend of the jainsem. Dr Panda
and I agree that this is a distinctive dress, and is donned proudly by the elderly
as well as the young, modern, globalised Khasi women.
Flipping
through some anthropological tomes in the library of All India Radio, I realize
that both in villages as well as towns, that chief features of the traditional women’s
dress are still retained from the times P R T Gurdon and other scholars who recorded
their observations. And that the Khasi female dress is very peculiarly their
own and cannot be related to the apparel of any neighbouring people.
I
am told that the radio talk – “Jainsem - Ek Parampara, Ek Pehchaan” still plays
on, and I am happy to see on visits to Shillong that the Jainsem goes on!
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*Ruskin Bond’s first novel.
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