As assemblages go, it was an impressive assemblage. No doubt, it glittered in the evening sun and provided a sort of halo effect as I squinted to aim at the third marble from the left half buried in the dust. I can't say I remember paying any attention to it (my regalia, I mean). But my ma, who was indeed the best I could have asked for, wrung her hands in despair and worked frantically and assiduously with needle and thread to keep her eldest born decently clad.

It was, certainly, a losing battle. Supply and demand, as they say in the business world. Demand was greater than supply, as it were, given my wanton consumerism. (Nevertheless, she did a grand job against overwhelming odds.)

"Where do you lose all your buttons?" she would demand to know, (not unreasonably), as she fished out her sewing stuff. This al- ways signaled a potential lecture on my rough and careless ways (the phrase "kaadamoodam," which unfortunately has no appropriate English translation, always figured prominently). I mostly es- caped this one-sided chiding, gentle as it was, by slinking off to fetch her glasses or something. It was a ruse that worked like a charm, until one day the newspaper, which usually never parti- cipated in these exchanges, spoke in a casual but firm voice. (Actually, it was my dad doing the fatherly thing.)

"Why don't you start wearing a mundu?" he inquired of me, man to man. "When I was your age," he continued, lowering the Times of India in a marked manner, "I wore a mundu! All your uncles wore mundus. We all had just two mundus each. We all wore mundus. You should also," he said, with a faraway look, "wear a mundu!" Put like that, it was powerful and persuasive. (My dad was a man of few words which he always chose well.)

"Besides," he went on, returning to earth, "we'll save a fortune on buttons."

Being the respectful Indian son, I ignored this crack with that practiced air of injured dignity and fortitude. Dads will be dads, as they say. Besides, it didn't seem like a half-bad idea. In fact, I was somewhat intrigued by it. I had always been fas- cinated by the "mundu," especially its "staying power," and the practiced flick of the heel that precedes its being hoisted to half-mast, an action which if correctly executed, verily personi- fies manhood, character and a certain panache.

I can already see hordes of you falling over yourselves and trip- ping over your keyboards, rushing to inform me of my ignorance. "Yaar, the correct expression is `veshti'" you want to tell me. "No, no, no! He means the `dhoti!'" cries another. "Are you quite sure you don't mean the `lungi?'" says someone else (from the "North"). I hear you all. I could very easily shrug a pair of (politically correct) shoulders and slink off without passing judgement. The "mundu" by any other name, (I could very well say), would be the same cultural morsel. But my soul rebels against such lies. For, the fact of the matter is : The mundu is a mundu (is a mundu)! (As my ancestors used to say down in Ay- alur, "If you're not wearing a mundu, then you're just wearing pants.")

My lessons began immediately. My dad fished out a brand new mun- du, smiling broadly. It was very white and very clean and my mother sighed gently. (This silent tragedy was lost on my dad who was busy unfurling fabric with an urgent sense of purpose.)

"In Kerala," he said, "Brahmins tie the knot on the right. We are from Kerala," he continued unnecessarily. "And so we tie the knot on the right. In Tamil Nadu, they tie it on the left!" he added, greatly amused by this absurd practice.

At this point, I made my move to do the half-mast trick and failed miserably. My dad rushed to my rescue.

"You do it like this," he said indulgently. "If you want more freedom to work and move about briskly, you tie it firmly so," he said. He then hefted his mundu and in what followed, I barely no- ticed the heel. It was beautiful.

It was obvious (to my sharp mind) that the knot meant everything if safe operation of this garment was the object. No belts and no buttons. Safety pins were conspicuous by their complete absence. The thing was seamless and airy. (In a word, disaster lurked -- and promptly struck the following morning.) Indeed, show me a man who claims he goes to bed wearing a mundu and wakes up the next morning with crease (and knot) intact and I'll show you a liar. It is quite, quite impossible.

[We now fast-forward through time to my salad years in Banaras to gather additional evidence. Blessed with the most cosmopolitan collection of juveniles you could throw a book at, there were among these, my buddies and my classmates, our good and deserving Tamil cousins from the Nadu. (They tied it on the left). Each misty morning, as one waddled out the door to begin the day, one would detect in the middle distance the silhouette of Bala (or it may have been Srini) and a flash of leg, followed by a hasty but expert motion at the hip (on the left side). Need I say more? It was the same thing as you turned the corner to go into the mess. Sometimes surreptitious, sometimes non chalant, mundu-restoring moves were the order of the day.]

And those were certainly the days. The occupational hazards of going abroad in seamless garb cannot be denied. Prudes who object to an occasional display of leg, the shy and the self-conscious who gasp with embarrassment at the first sign of public attention will do well to continue investing in their favorite designer je- ans. But all you free spirits, you, who are willing to risk it all for a familiar half forgotten thrill, I invite you to join me for a walk in the park on a cool Colorado summer's day. Imagine breathing that crisp mountain air after a refreshing afternoon thundershower. Imagine our bare feet being tickled by freshly cut grass. Further imagine a cool breeze out of the northwest causing our mundus to flap gently, the pleasant sound of golf balls zing- ing by our ears, snow clad peaks in the distance, and nervous fingers hovering at the hip (on the right side) to avert disas- ter.

It'll be a breeze, mann. Give me a call.