The Hollow Men

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

(W H Auden - The Hollow Men)

 

Think of an Indian banker and the picture which invariably comes to mind is of a man wearing a suit and a tie and looking quite uncomfortable doing so. It is worn more like a uniform rather than a smart piece of clothing which enhances one’s personality. The irony is that our women bankers, and there are quite a few in the top echelons, appear quite comfortably in command in a saree!

Dress codes in every society are essentially a function of local living conditions and available material for making apparel. I fail to understand as to why we men in India still insist in worshiping European apparel standards which evolved for much colder climes, considering that we are a tropical country!

A western suit, except when worn during winter months in North India, not only keeps the wearer uncomfortable but is also requires much higher levels of air-conditioning (where available) with its ill consequences on energy consumption and environment. Though, in India some concession was made in the form of a Safari Suit.

Most of us have been subtly conditioned through centuries of colonisation to believe that while the traditional Indian clothes is acceptable attire for home or ceremonial gatherings, for formal or informal occasions the correct dress code is trousers and shirt (preferably full sleeves).

Apparel also helps in fixing one’s identity to some preconceived notions. For example, Massey Saheb started wearing a coat and tie to help freeze his identity as a Christian in the film by the same name. Again, we have a lot of Indian women who start wearing a frock to delineate their Christian identity. Or there are plenty of born-again Hindus who sing paeans on the myriad benefits of wearing saffron clothes.

Banking is a service organisation, and being well groomed at all times in public, even outside work is highly desirable if for nothing else than for maintaining the look of stolidity of the profession.

For some strange reason, which I have been unable to fathom inspite of pondering over it for the last 36 odd years, the western suit preferably with a tie is the accepted attire for bankers. Concession to that is made on 'casual occasions', say on working Saturdays where the garb, more often than not changes to jeans, T Shirt, and sneakers. And most folks wearing it look quite smug and contented doing so.

It is a rare business executive (and never a banker on duty) that one can find wearing any kind of Indian formal attire - say a pyjama-kurta / dhoti-kurta combo, especially considering it is one of the most comfortable clothes to wear. It is not very expensive, easy to maintain, covers you well, goes well in casual, informal, and formal settings too, and the most important aspect is that it is very comfortable for Indian weather conditions – in summer, monsoon, or winter.

The fascination of wearing western style lounge suits with a tie can be found in most countries which were under European colonial occupation for long. I was most surprised while traveling through the Middle East to see many prominent Arab bankers and business executives continuing to work and function well wearing their traditional thobes.

And contrary to what Wikipedia says, the seminal contribution of the Arabs to the banking profession cannot be discounted. For over 3000 years they managed the bulk of the trade between Europe and Asia (along with Indian merchants) and developed the basics of what is now known as commercial banking, such as, deposit keeping, promissory notes, and bills of exchange.

The clearest evidence of the contribution of Arabs to commerce is the fact that Arab merchants picked up and adopted Indian number system. While the Arabic language is written from right to left, they write their numbers from left to right and still refer to it as "Indian numerals". They then passed on the number systems to Europe, who used to labour with their calculations using the cumbersome Roman numerals. Till recently, international numerals were widely referred to as Arabic numerals.

Indian bankers need to get out of their fixed modes of thinking and what easier and better way to do so but to do away with the highly restrictive western lounge suit!