Not Bengali, but love lungi

My grandmother's house in rural Australia was like a train station.  The screen door, unlocked in the early days, was a wasted effort in that it could hardly keep the summer flies out from all the people coming in and going out. It was always open. The visitors, they'd make their way to the kitchen table in general, hoping to find the kettle boiled.

It's an unsurprising circumstance, perhaps, given my grandmother had a big family, came from a big family and married into a big family. The pool of potential relatives to arrive was very large. Aunts, uncles, cousins, more distant great-whatever-in-laws-twice-removed: that whoever came there was a relative was a very safe assumption. Meanwhile in the backyard were umpteen other kids to socialise with. It was fun.

But what my grandmother did the best, I think, was to create an atmosphere where everybody felt loved for who they were.

When I got older, after school, I started to travel, and I made it to more than a few places. What I found was, almost everywhere, enormous hospitality. I have had the great privilege of being invited into people's homes and lives in many countries. It's the sort of wealth money can't buy.

And I was drawn to Hatiya, first in 1998 then almost every year thereafter. I found myself to be a creature of the village, drawn in by the beauty of the landscape and the tremendous hospitality of the islanders. My friend Situ's family became my Bengali family over the years and his mother became my Bengali mother.

Apologies: I'm not aiming at memoir. I wish only to consider how I came upon the open door policy I try to follow at my house in Dhaka. Is it from my grandmother's screen door, from all the open doors in Hatiya and Bangladesh, or from those further away, around the world?

What I do feel is that the opportunity to host guests in Dhaka, and despite my hospitality not being up to the usual Bangladeshi standard, is an opportunity to somehow give a little generosity back, especially to the Hatiyalas, but also in a more general sense, to the world at large. I like it.

In Dhaka the visitors are most often Hatiyala villagers, who most often come to the city for medical treatment. Cancer, diabetes, eye problems and jaundice cases: there have been all sorts of maladies at my place. Tests, good results and not so good results, smiles and tears: one night I recall there were nine individuals staying over, with some sleeping on blankets in the living room. I was calling the house a private clinic on that day as five of them were patients. People come for other reasons too: for job interviews, examinations, to attend seminars. For whoever it is that has no place to stay in Dhaka, I try as much as possible to ensure the door is open.

One thing about the villagers: when they do come, it's entirely usual for them to come wearing lungi. And that is fine, because daily, I wear them too. I mean, one doesn't feel that one is truly at home until the trousers have been substituted for lungi. Isn't it?

I know. I'm not Bengali. But when you travel you tend to pick up some of the habits, hopefully the good ones, of the places you've been to. And from the many years visiting Bangladesh, I may not be Bengali in blood but the lungi certainly made its presence felt.

I remember the first lungi I bought was in a village in Comilla, in 1996. It was just for fun and these days I'd be ashamed to show the photographs since that lungi was much too short, finishing a bare few inches below the knee. I'd never bought lungi before, did not know to consider the length pre-purchase, what the price might be, or that the village shop might not have a range suitable for taller human specimens.

Nonetheless I wore it and what is clear, what you all know: lungis are the most comfortable, easy, relaxed and versatile piece of clothing known to mankind, or, at least, known for men. That first lungi might've been too short but it did start a new tradition; and once the lungi has been tried, as you can imagine, there's no turning back.

Later, largely due to the wash cycle, when there were no other options available, I started wearing lungi not only in Hatiya, each year, but also in Sydney, strictly around the house. Later still, I wore them for comfort, because I wanted to. My Australian mother who looked after the washing used to say, totally matter-of-factly 'Your skirts are on the clothesline. Take them in, will you?' She didn't know how else to call the lungis, and was probably unclear that in Bangladesh they are very masculine attire.

Meanwhile, my Bengali mother in the earlier years used to baulk at me wearing lungi outside the village, into the main town of Ochkhali on Hatiya Island. She thought it was better for my prestige to wear trousers. But I used to go in lungi anyway, at least some of the time, suitably longer lungi by then. The villagers wore lungi and I found much to respect about them, so why wouldn't I wear lungi too?

Now in Dhaka, while I don't usually venture onto the street in lungi, that is because to do so is to suddenly make a dozen new friends, and sometimes I just wish to go and buy the groceries or whatever. But I must say I was a little envious to learn that in South India lungis, the ones in white that are customary there, are considered formal attire and may be worn even to the office. How comfortable those South Indians must be! How sensible!

And between you and me, in all the years I've never really learnt how to affix lungi neatly. My system could best be characterised as hurried and messy. But it works.

And between you and me, in earlier years I couldn't understand why lungi never came in red. I used to threaten to open a red lungi factory – a venture doomed to fail of course – but eventually I bought one red lungi, in Myanmar. I know the reason for no red, but surely red lungi would be fashionable at the very least, on Pahela Baishakh?

But regardless of the colour, when it comes to lungi, I'm a big fan.

It was tremendous a year ago, when my Australian parents came to Bangladesh and went to the village in Hatiya, for the first time. Situ's family presented my father with a gamcha and an old-man-style lungi, and my mother with a sari. The ladies of the house helped my mother arrange it, while the gents assisted my father in putting on his first 'skirt.' The photographs are wonderful, and Mum and Dad can't stop talking about the fantastic time they had here!

This is why it was with great consternation that I read about the lungi ban on rickshaw drivers entering Baridhara. Who do those Baridharans think they are? It is anti-Bengali, anti-practical and anti-poor. And why target the humble, innocent lungi?

And I'd like to thank the lungi defenders who took to Banani playground recently; and I'd like to thank the High Court bench of Justices Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and ABM Altaf Hossain for their recent suo moto motion and the issuing of an order seeking explanation about what steps have been taken against those responsible for the lungi ban.

Because, alas, for the first time in my life, I have had to consider enacting a blanket ban of my own, on the comings and goings at my front door: open to all except those from Baridhara, with High Court Justices and lungi defenders particularly welcome. It's just that, like my grandmother I suppose, I believe it is important for people to feel free to be just exactly who they are.

Or, at the least, I try to stick to that principle because it's one that generates the sort of wealth which money can't buy.

But on the other hand, all Baridharans can't be bad, can they?

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Andrew Eagle has pursued various careers, including in government administration, education and travel. He is at present a Dhaka based writer.