In praise of fashions and styles

After deposing Pakistan's President Iskander Mirza on October 27, 1958 one of the first things Muhammad Ayub Khan did on formalising his military rule was a nationwide campaign that he had launched to cleanse the environment of homes and workplaces. Flyers promoting hygiene were dropped from airplanes warning the population of dire punishment if there were any dirt or bushes anywhere -- in towns or in villages. People got panicky. Ponds were suddenly cleansed of water hyacinth. Bushes magically disappeared. Roads and lanes got abnormally clean. People became so fanatical in clearing their surroundings that they started cutting off even their very valuable trees lest such trees should look bushy to the view of a martial law authority.
Of all the ballyhoos with cleanliness one craze that was fantastic was the frenzy with which men in towns and villages started cutting their bushy hair as short and thin as possible though there was no indication on the required length or density of men's hair in any of the martial law promulgations. Men in their attempt to look tidy copycatted the soldier's haircut. The young and the old men alike crowded the barber shops to shave their heads clean or to trim down their hair short. Even some imams, who emulated a Bedouin tradition to have long hair that hung over their shoulders and earlobes, also pruned away the extra length of their hair. A new trend of hairstyle called 'military cut' thus perhaps evolved among the civilians in Pakistan.
In my boyhood, I could never dream of having hair longer than half an inch. In my adulthood, as long as my father was alive, I don't remember when I could let my hair grow longer than an inch. Forget about me, no friend of mine could ever think of coming to our house if he had long hair. That was the norm. But I could not fathom out why guardians were so allergic to long hair.
Nowadays our children and grandchildren are quite different. They don't adapt their styles with what their guardians think proper.  They do whatever they fancy with their hair or their dresses.  Guardians too don't intervene in their wards' personal affairs as to their choices and styles. Still I was unhappy when I found my only son with his hair grown longer than the normal length I have always been used to seeing. And I was bristling with anger when one day I found my son having his hair erected like thorns on the top of his head. As I asked why and how he did it my son replied: "This is the fashion and I did it by applying a kind of a gel on my hair."
Later, I was doubly shocked as I found a senior person like Lutfozzaman Babar, the former Home Minister of Bangladesh, with a tuft of his hair similarly gelled up and made erect on the top of his head. I only sighed in silence: "Oh God! What else are in store for me to see?"
But there were in stores many more shocking surprises awaiting me.
My sharp senses as to sartorial tastes and moral decencies that were nurtured under the guardianship of my father got gradually blunted and are now in the wane as I got exposed to the modernity of life, culture and styles in the West. Today men having long hair or women having short hair is not considered moral or immoral. Today, the length of hair does not determine people's sexual orientation or identity. Women in bikinis and men with long hair or tongues and navels of boys and girls, so to say, pierced for wearing jewelries are now commonplace scenes.
Not many years back, employing facial tattoos was a form of punishment for certain crimes to brandish the criminals in the eyes of the public. Registered prisoners and slaves were tattooed on their hands in order to make desertion difficult on their part. I still remember municipal sweepers with tattoos on their forearms in the 1960s sweeping the streets in Dhaka city.
But tattooing is now a billion-dollar business in the West and maybe it would soon be a million-dollar business in Bangladesh. Men and women get their bodies (including their most private areas) decoratively tattooed. You will not be surprised if you find a lady who dances with a great élan or a professional who wields tremendous authority in his office or a media personality who has millions of fans is fond of tattooing his or her body parts. The best place to see a young girl with a piece of jewelry pierced onto her navel or an old lady with her entire back ornamentally tattooed is on a sea beach in America.
The other day, while visiting the Fort Worth Water Gardens in Texas I stepped all the way down the canyon-like pool, 38 feet below the ground level. I was baffled by the sound of 10,500 gallons of water rushing per minute on the surrounding walls. The forceful water skimming the walls created a cool mist that thrilled all the visitors. I felt wrapped around by the artificial waterfalls. The ambiance was exuberant. At the bottom-most rough-stoned step of the pool I met a young boy with tufts of his hair erected abnormally high like a slim hill on top of his head. I told him: "I am amazed by your hairstyle". The boy was happy with my complements and agreed to pose with me. The American boy must have painstakingly waited till his hair grew long enough before applying hair gel that shaped his hair now looking like the golden crown of a bird. As I was wondering about the boy's funny hairstyle I looked back to the day when I razed at the sight of my son's gelled-up hair that appeared to me like sharp spines of a porcupine. Similarly gelled-up hair of Lutfozzaman Babar also reappeared to my mind. After seeing the young boy with his crowned hairstyle I now have sympathy for both my son and Mr. Babar. Such hairstyle no more irritates me; rather the style now pleases me as a new definition of beauty.
Many of us have however got used with the sight of young and old men with their long or braided hair. No more do we feel uneasy when we find a lady with her short hair fashioned like a boy's haircut. We have been so used to so much weird dresses and costumes that nothing however weird surprises us. The other day, as I was shopping in a mall in Maryland, I found an elderly lady talking to her friend while her teeth were flashing with blinking light. She was wearing a set of 'light-up glowing teeth'. I was not surprised. I just gave her cursory look. We have been used to a cultural currency that is changing tones and tenors at a rapid pace.
In spite of my blunted senses to obscenity I could never reconcile with a particular fashion I find with young American boys who intentionally wear loose pants or jeans without any belt so that the pant drops and much of the underwear reveals. Women wear low-rise jeans to reveal a part of their lower back. Well, that is somehow tolerable. But why boys are crazy to show their underwear letting their pants drop? These boys are called 'saggers' as they wear pants that sag. Later, I came to learn that sagging was adopted from the United States prison system where belts are sometimes prohibited to prevent prisoners from using them as weapons for committing suicide by hanging themselves. The style, as the Wikipedia says, was popularised by hip-hop artists in the 1990s as a kind of a symbol of freedom and cultural awareness among some youths or a symbol of their rejection of the values of mainstream society.
Will it be too much to speculate now that the day is not far away when on summer holidays men and women, as a symbol of their rejection of the values of mainstream society, will love to bask in the sun while walking on the walkways completely and starkly naked?
There are, believe it or not, processions and gatherings you will find in many parts of the world where participants feel free to remain completely naked. Such was a "Nude and Breast Freedom Parade" I had an ill fate to look at a few years back during my short stay at my younger brother's house in Berkeley, California. I was appalled at the liberty of American men and women walking so freely with their naked bodies exposed to the eyes of the public in broad daylight.
The effects of looking at people's bodies affect how you judge them and think about them morally. Some morally dignified women, say, are fully and properly dressed. And imagine that the same women are now entirely naked. Your moral judgment in two scenarios will differ diametrically. The objectification of women, thinking of women as only sexual being, has a pernicious effect on how you think about them. It also applies to naked men. If you see somebody without clothes they will look more like an animal. They lose their dignity; and they lose their status. Still, people enjoy moving around completely naked while others gape at them.
In a dictionary 'Beauty' is defined as "the quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality." Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Beauty pleasurably exalts our mind and spirit. We tend to see beauty in something or someone that is pleasing to our eyes. The stereotype that Hollywood sets for beauty in an actor or an actress may not necessarily be what others consider as 'beautiful'. What is beautiful to us in Bangladesh may not be accepted as beauty in the USA. Regions around the world have different perceptions of what beauty is.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! In China, the attractive woman is someone with a very slim figure, flat chest, pale skin, and big eyes. Chinese women are very apprehensive about getting a tan. In the West, on the other hand, women pay to tan their skin. In Bangladesh, long nose is a beauty and in Iran women pay to make plastic surgery to turn their long nose into a short one.
As the world is getting smaller, we may have to see beauty as something based on 'Hollywood image'.  The criteria and the acceptance of what is beautiful are changing so fast that in near future perhaps everyone around the world will have the same concept of what beauty is. No more perhaps I will bristle with anger if I ever find my grandson with a sagging trouser or my granddaughter with a sparkling jewelry pierced in the middle of her tongue! Or, maybe one day I myself may fancy piercing my own ears to wear a pair of golden earrings or tattooing my forehead with a Bangla inscription "AAMAAR KOPAAL".
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