I received this as a forward…….i could not hold on to this for long…so here u go… A brilliant eulogy ..
The Southie's dhoti and how to rattle it (Or how to diddle your 'mundu')
Other men gird their loins, Southie men gird their dhotis.
Underestimated by the rest of the world as a mere garment, a foolish extension of the loincloth, it's only the Southie male who knows that the dhoti can be much, much more.
(Bringing to mind the opening line of Love Story. "What do you say about a one-and-a-half-metre tundu?.")
Well to start with, the Southie's dhoti is a piece of minimalist art. No clumsy acres of cloth to be feverishly gathered and pleated, no frenzied crawling between and around the legs. Just a pithy bit of pristine whiteness, enough to go around the waist once, with some left over for the two ends to overlap - barely. It's also a free spirit, secured by just one firm tuck at the waist, the rest left to hang free, unrestrained.
Because the Southie knows that a dhoti is not just something to wear; but to wield much the way a skunk does his stink or a bimbo her cleavage.
And so as Time dawned on mankind (somewhere between Mohenjo and Daro), the art of 'dhoti rattling' came to be, the art of how to swagger, strut, scare, conquer and tame - all with a piece of cotton as bland as your granny's 'khichdi'.
Which is why, like Sharon Stone's hemline, the Southie's dhoti is built to have the unfettered freedom to rise or fall, fold over or flap across, even cleave open to lay bare the magnificence of Southie machismo.
Naturally, this means that the Southie dhoti spends very little time being at full length - i.e. modestly covering its wearer from waist to toe - and a lot of its time being folded up to reveal calves, knees, thighs (and sometimes ..gasp! even more) depending on how things are going! You can see the tip of the 'ice berg' sometime. You must look beyond that and look for the 'Titanic' that follows....
Now before you leap to any rash conclusions about the Southie male's secret exhibitionist tendencies ("we'd have never guessed with all that 'Vibhuti'!") let me tell you that without knowing how and when to fold or unfold your dhoti (while wearing it, naturally!) there's no way you can rattle it. (Nor diddle your 'mundu'.) It's a bit like trying to wrestle without a partner or to tango without feet.
And depending on your dexterity and timing, you can deploy your dhoti to play popular male sports like mine-is-bigger-than-yours, my-daddy-can-beat-up-your-daddy-not-to-mention-what-he-can-do-to-your-mummy and you-can-take-it-and-stick-it-up-you-know-where.
Needless to say, the art of dhoti rattling has been stitched into the Southie's Y chromosomeand there was a time when every good Southie boy worth his weight in 'mulgai podi'learnt it much before he learnt how to manage 'rasam'on a banana leaf.
Alas, with the invasion of the pant and the pyjama, it's now a dying art in the cities, but is still alive and well where paddy is lush, the coconut tender, the jack fruit ripens like prickly pregnant hippos and the air is laced with the fragrance of black hair gently wallowing in coconut oil.
Now though it is said that there are as many ways of diddling a dhoti (or wiggling your 'veshti'), as there are recipes to make your idli batter rise, here are the few basic moves common to all schools.
The Buffalo Bhoothalingam Draw (Inspired by the Bucking-Bronco Kick.)
Used to answer the Call of the Testosterone. And when the call comes, to the swelling of the chest and the quivering of the moustache, (maybe even the clash of a few cymbals), in one lightning motion, you shoot out a leg backwards to kick the lower end of the dhoti upwards into a waiting hand. And before anyone can say 'Karaikudi Kunjukunju Mudaliar', the dhoti will lie trussed up at loin level and you are all set to defend the honour of gramam, gotram or garage mechanic. Can be accompanied by dialogues like "Yenna da, rascal!" or even 'Poda Patti' (Go away you Dog - to replace the belligerent Punjabi words like BC/MC) or words to that effect. But the more stylish practitioners prefer to let the dhoti do all the talking. If your dhoti is already folded up, just go in reverse. Make sure that when you unfold it, you don't yank the whole damn thing off. It requires years of practice to know and find the location of that little bit of dhoti that will do the trick.
