Objective:
- Evaluate personal values and paradigms around body decoration and physical beauty.
- Investigate how physical appearance affects definitions of identity and belonging.
- Analyze values and belief systems of physical appearance across cultures, sub-cultures and generations.
Original Post:
Thinking about my personal dressing makes me realize one think my dressing is far from what’s my cultural dressing is actually suppose to be. As I dress in a more western way or in a most 21stcentury way. Basically Jeans, T-shirts, sneakers are my most common everyday wear. But, climate also contributes greatly in my daily dressing as rainy day means I cannot wear my suede sneakers or for sunny days I wont wear a jacket. In this view, I dress as any collage kid would dress around the world. This does not signify any cultural belief upheld by me as Indian, rather I think this type of dressing does signify the culture of our time. I think that every time or era have its own culture as for example; in the 70s bell bottoms jeans were deeply in style however this is not so true for the present decade in which, most of the younger generation prefer wearing jeans that are as skinny as possible. Though time plays a great role in determining the type of dress code I think another factor that as equally responsible in choices of style is age. As different age groups always have different preference in terms of style and dress code. Many people in there 30s or 40s do not were converse or vans or ridiculous shirts that points out they drink or say stuff like “babe magnet”. There is a difference in terms of choice in different age group and mine basically signify that of a collage kid which, Is mostly the cause why I presently dress the way that I do. However, this was not always the case as few years ago when I was still in mother care my dressing sense was very different then now. Mostly, my mother choose my cloths and her choices, now that I think about it would not be something that I would consider wearing.
My family is originally from an Indian background but I was born and raised outside of India. Though not being raised in India, my family has passed down to me many traditional Indian traits including but not limited to the language, cultural belief and religion. However, in thins I have always been thought that Indian woman are to wear “saris” and “salwar kurta” are traditional attire. Piercing of nose and ears are additional adornments that are part of the Indian culture of woman also. However, unlike girls boys on the other hand not have much cultural specification for how him or her should dress. Basically its Indian cultural attire for man are traditional “kurta” but being born and brought up in a foreign country it was never actually necessary for me to practice such traditional dressing. However, on the other hand even in most of India such body adornment practices are mostly only practiced in events and not as a everyday casual wear. As for me my family was never specific in terms of how should I customize my body in terms of dressing. We basically practices western dressing and match with the crowd of were we lived. Other form of body adornment like piercing and tattoos are not part of Indian cultural belief and therefore weren’t practiced by my parents. Though they are not forbidden my family always had an indifferent nature towards it. My family is more western and belief in rationality more over culture and religion. They belief of body adornment is shown by wearing an expensive designer suit, shoes and an expensive watch. This type of adornment does not reflect on me at this point in life but are types of adornment that interest me the most.
My peer community, which is the American community and culture, is driven by an extensive nature of consumerism. In such light, there are many ways of body adornment including but not limited to tattoos, piercing, and fancy dressing. Though they’re many others in my belief these are the most widely practiced among all. Tattoos I think are the most common as in American as according to a NBC poll in 2014 about 40% of Americans have some form of tattoo and the number is actually growing. This can even be seen in our university campus as many students have some form of tattoo. The second form that I think is equally common as tattoo is fancy dressing. In a consumerist society is no surprise that fancy dressing is one major form of customization as the entire economy runs on the fact that people want something better and cheaper. Thus the successful accomplishment in the clothing industry can show how important and successful is dressing adornment in America.
Reflection:
The mehndi celebration is one of the most known pre-maritrial celebration in the Indian and Pakistani culture. This celebration often occurs with the bride family in a martial event decorating the bride hands and feet with henna. Often this celebration is also hosted with the groom and his family in the pre-maritial event but in some more closed culture such as the Pakistani culture the celebration is only to be held within the bride family only. The mehndi celebration is practiced in the south asian territories from ancient times of Sanskrit and is always consider as a adornment that is practiced to increase the brides beauty for her wedding. Thus only being an adornment the mehndi holds high cultural and traditional value in the south asian territories of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The picture above shows a bride posing her feet and hands to show her henna during a mehndi ceremony. This physical appearance in the Southern Asia is always associated with newly married bride or bride to be. Many people around the world recognize the henna as merely a sign of decoration however, for the southern Asian culture this is a sign of a bride. As identifies by Sanders all form of body alteration “have the function of providing symbolic information about the bearer’s personal interest, social position, relationship, or self-defination” (Sanders, 21). Thus, for South Asians henna bears a relationship status of just married and self-defination of beauty.
Over generation the South Asian culture of the Mehndi have been divided as South Asia divided into five different countries and each of these South Asian country have customize this custom in their own culture which differs from the other South Asian cultures in some minor way. For the simplicity and length I will only discuss the Indian culture. Over the years the culture and its practice of mehndi have pretty much been the same however, there have been some few modification over the generation as mehndi initially was supposed to be drawn on the bride by a family member but now people mostly prefer professional for more perfection. However, the henna that is used in Indian Mehndi ritual are merely seen as decoration in other culture around the world and is only used for such purpose. This is mostly practices in American and European culture, other culture such as Egyptian and Arab culture give the henna more cultural importance. In conclusion, the henna hold high importance in the Mehndi ritual of Southern Asia, over generation there have been some minor modification of the ritual among all South Asian cross culture but the ritual still remain highly practiced and hold high importance for many South Asian culture however, the henna does not hold any significance in the European and American culture and is merely consider an item of decoration.
Future:
The Mehndi holds great importance in the Southern Asian territories in terms of marital ritual but they also have great importance in Arab, Ethiopian and Egyptian cultures. If I was to further study about the henna or the Mehndi ritual I will definitely examine their usage among these cultures and the traditional belief associated with them.
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