Recently, I read that the Chen­nai streets, which were named after his­toric British offi­cials, will be changed to Tamil schol­ars’ names and one such street name is Tay­lor road. Though I know it’s not tai­lors road, I have my own thoughts, call­ing the street name as Tai­lors road. ஏன்னா.. இருபத்தஞ்சு வ‌ருஷ‌த்துக்கு முன்னாடி.. [ ஆர‌ம்பிச்சிட்டாண்டா :) ]

My father strictly fol­lowed his own dress code pol­icy ; his wardrobe had pairs of clothes which never gets inter­changed – the light yel­low shirt can only be seen with his navy blue trousers. He has great taste in dresses, food, books, kids and life, of course. He was some­how attached very much with the senior tai­lor at RC Tai­lors, which is located in Taylor’s road [ it was named after James Tay­lor – mem­ber of coun­cil in 1828 dur­ing British rule.  Believe me.. He was given 11 acres of land as grant in Chet­pet those days — Madarasap pat­ti­nam  days! ]. I remem­ber going with my father in 15B from Amin­jikarai to Tay­lors road, give mea­sure­ments and then col­lect the new clothes at a spec­i­fied date. He was cost­lier then, when com­pared to the local KSB or other tai­lors in Amin­jikarai area but a clas­sic crafts­man. Inter­est­ingly, his son runs the shop now and I was a reg­u­lar cus­tomer until a while ago – before the ready­made dress­ing era. The gen­er­a­tion cycle would be com­plete when my son wears a shirt with RCTai­lors label, inside his collar.  

Another Tai­lor.. Another episode [ Vet­taiyaadu vil­layaadu theme :) ]

I had trav­elled from Ban­ga­lore to Hyder­abad and then took another 5 hours jour­ney in bus to Nizam­abad - a murky lit­tle town in Telen­gana area. The town is filled up with whole­sale cloth mer­chants, elec­tronic items [ broad­cast­ing “Naaku noovu.. neeku nenu” in sub woofers with some Mahesh babu songs ], Sai baba named shops and an usual bazaar road. I vis­ited that place after almost 20 years.

My father was posted in Nizam­abad dur­ing his last ser­vice term in the govt office.  We had our evening tea [ Lamsa tea at its best ] and vis­ited a spe­cial per­son – Mr. Venu. The per­son greeted me hap­pily and amazed with the usual expres­sion that a kid he used to carry has grown tall as a man [ Babu intha ped­havaadani anukaleka poyye­nandi :) ]. He meant it .. Because he was the one who stitched clothes in my kinder gar­den days– my father was work­ing in NZM then, before we moved to Chen­nai. He was hold­ing my hands till the entire shop­ping was done in some local shop. He didn’t even give the clothes to me and directly took to his shop. He was happy to stitch 2 sets of dresses for me. It was more than a rela­tion between a cus­tomer and a tai­lor. More than his work, he was sat­is­fied that a kid, who vis­ited him even after ages [ sim­i­larly, school teach­ers ]. The label stitched inside the col­lar doesn’t carry just the name of the tai­lor but the mem­o­ries behind it.

Going back to the school days.. the pre fes­ti­val days were occu­pied mostly by fol­low­ing up with the local tai­lor for the new dresses [பைய‌ன் வ‌ந்துறுவான்..காஜா ம‌ட்டும் வைக்க‌ணும்.. ஒரு 1 அவ‌ர் பொறுத்து வா]. The delays and the vis­its to the tai­lor shop were count­less, before the fes­ti­val and school reopen­ing days. One more best tai­lor in my life is our fam­ily tai­lor Haaja Moideen in my home town. We used to col­lect the cut pieces of dif­fer­ent col­ored clothes and play with them in his shop. It’s a very small shop which can accom­mo­date just 2 tai­lors in sit­ting posi­tion. [ remem­ber Kaalian­nan tai­lor shop in Suvar illadha sithirangall – ச‌ரோஸா..குப்பை கொட்றியா.. கொட்டு ].

I remem­ber the famous Bom­bay dye­ing cal­en­dar with the famous actress of the yester years. I remem­ber see­ing Radha, Nad­hiya, Urvasi in those cal­en­dars. Haaja had the spe­cial mem­ory to stitch clothes mostly by see­ing the per­son and doing the math men­tally.  As any good tai­lor, pro­cras­ti­na­tion and craft­man­ship are his 2 eyes. Other than the men clothes, he stitches pattu pavadai [ ட‌க்கு புடிச்ச‌து ], frocks and some spe­cial dresses like Safari suit [ எப்பேர்ப‌ட்ட‌ ட்ர‌ஸ்சுங்க‌ அது :)  - I hate that pat­tern of dressing].

Mathan, my class­mate, used to intro­duce the lat­est fash­ion from the city [Chen­nai ! ] to our home­town. Bag­gies, shirt with col­lar but­ton, filts [ even in shoul­ders ], par­al­lel baggy, Kurtha [ but looks like chu­did­har :) ]. He had his own tai­lor and almost designs his dress [ உத‌ய‌ம்ல‌ நாகார்ஜுனா போட்டிருப்பானேங்க‌.. அது ].  The other place we come across these tai­lor shops are the ciname the­atre inter­val adver­tise­ment cards with Rajini or Kamal pho­tos mostly [ Some­times Michael Jack­son ! ]. Sky­lab, New Rand, Fash­ion tai­lors were some of the shops. Women at home used to go the “ennaikadai” tai­lor for their needs.

ச‌ல‌வைக்குறிக்குப் பின்னே
ஒரு குடும்ப‌த்தின்
சின்ன‌ ச‌ரித்திரமும்..

ச‌ட்டைக் கால‌ரின்
டெய்ல‌ர்க‌டை லேபிளுக்குப் பின்னே

முக‌ம் ம‌ற‌ந்த‌ டெய்ல‌ரின்
நீண்ட‌ க‌ட்டை விர‌ல் ந‌க‌மும்,
பாதி டேபிள் அக‌ல‌த்திலிருக்கும்
பெரிய‌ க‌த்திரியும்,
ச‌க்க‌ர‌ங்க‌ளின் ச‌த்த‌மும்,
துணிக‌ள் குத்திய‌
ரெஜிஸ்ட‌ரும்..

தைய‌ல் மெஷினின் கால்மிதி போலே
நினைவில் ஆடிக்கொண்டிருக்கும்.

Happy rewind­ing

:)

Toto.

PS : Nos­tal­gia is noth­ing to do with my mid life crisis :) .

Related Posts B

1. Bazaar Street browsings.
2. Nan­dalala — The road not taken
3. Nandalala-Road trav­elled further