Not many people know this, but for many years, popular folk and Sufi singer from Rajasthan, Mame Khan, had been a percussionist. Back in 1999, he even went on a world tour as a percussionist. He stayed in Belgium for six months, returned to India for a short time, leaving his drums there. He had planned to go back to Belgium after a short while, but he was not able to. This became a huge turning point in his life. He was disappointed, of course, but then his father Rana Khan told Mame, “One door closed for you but at the same time you can open a thousand doors if you keep working hard on your music.”
“This was the day I stared singing – and my drums are till date in Belgium,” says Mame Khan, after a recent performance in Thiruvananthapuram. His late father Rana Khan, who gave the advice, is, he says, one of the best teachers he could wish for, and had been a fantastic singer. Mame belongs to a musician community from Rajasthan, called Manganiyar.
Writer Kiran Manral agrees with Shunali about consulting contemporary Indian designers for his Indian wardrobe. “This is dated styling advice and like Former J&K CM Omar Abdullah pointed out, nobody in India dresses like this either,” she mentions.
In any case, it’s unfair to pounce on the Canadian PM. Kiran points out, “It’s rather endearing that he wanted to play to the gallery and sport an Indian look. The first two times he wore kurta-pyjama was cute, after that it was a bit of a killjoy. But he is so gorgeous that we can forgive him for this one faux pas.”
Trudeau’s statement socks!
Everyone makes odd fashion blunders and thankfully, not everything about his wardrobe was horrid!
Trudeau, who is known for his collection of statement-making socks, did not disappoint in this department. As Star Wars is his favourite theme, he decided to meet his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, wearing Darth Vader socks and the two found a common ground to talk about straight away.
Similarly, while meeting the Irish Prime Minister in 2017, he decided to take inspiration from Star Wars and wore R2D2 and C3PO socks. At Davos earlier this year, he sported purple-and-yellow duck socks.
In fact Industrialist Anand Mahindra even tweeted, “I told @CanadianPM (who has a great sense of humour) that my daughters would be dismayed I hadn’t chosen appropriately colourful socks for the occasion. I decided to admit & have my dismal wardrobe failure photographically recorded!”
Dilip Cherian, image consultant:
Justin Trudeau needs to understand that you can’t make every appearance in India dressed in ethnic Indian outfits. To do that, on every subsequent appearance begins to jar on the Indian psyche and the Indian audiences. We believe that this is a little less about fancy dress and more about content. So he may think he is winning on the ethnic ‘balle balle’ outfit, but those are not the buttons that need to be pressed in India. This just gives off the impression of Canada being a kind of land ‘Sardars on the loose’. I’m unsure if I agree with his approach.
Wearing what he wore, the Canadian Prime Minister is stereotyping what is acceptable to India. So it’s like saying that this particular outfit is the perfect uniform to greet India in.
While he has managed to retain the young and innovative look, but in the process, he has reduced it to the lowest common denominator. In situations where diplomats have to dress to visit other countries, it is best to indicate a nodding delight in something local and proceed to be yourself — you certainly are not a kurta pajama-clad politician.
