I could best describe this situation by following Filmy line …. “Majboor ye halaat idhar bhi hai udhar bhi” (“I am restrained by the compulsion is on either side”. Excuse my poor translation)
Following are a few pictures of My City, Calcutta. These are taken from emails which have been making round for sometime now and most of us have received once already! These pictures were taken in 1930ies (nineteen thirties) less than two decades prior to our independence from the British rule.
One point bothers me whenever I look at these images. Almost 200 years into British rule our people have been dressing themselves in traditional attire. But what happened in the next 25 years that made us to abandon(except for special occasions/ festivities) the “dhoti - kurta” altogether? Could we not have tried to do make our traditional attire evolve itself to stand up to the need of the 21st century?
I am thinking aloud and would welcome your thoughts on this!
Please click on the image for a bigger picture.
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CjyM8b98_qA/SqorRkf7p3I/AAAAAAAABaA/PnVD4oAwiqk/s320/image010.jpg)
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CjyM8b98_qA/SqorLBHo9eI/AAAAAAAABZ4/O2Wpo4eXOGU/s320/image005.jpg)