The 'melange' generation

To shock, stare and be stared at. To flaunt, fly, talk the latest lingo and stay cool when temperatures flare... GEETA DOCTOR looks at the attitudes and styles of Chennai's new generation youth.

IT'S SATURDAY afternoon and a hot wind is blowing through the mall.

Never mind which mall. This is a new generation, post, post-John Travolta, and the testosterone-fuelled frenzy of his "Staying Alive" dance number. They've never even heard of him, even though they are running up and down the stairways, hanging around the passages, leaping on their two-wheelers and revving them up in a manner that shows that Saturday Night Fever is Alive! It's just that the tunes have changed and so have the haircuts, the shoes, the fashions.

"John who?" they ask in a mildly puzzled way. The only John they've heard of is John Abraham. He's the face of today. He's the haircut of the moment. Every other young man is sporting a John Abraham cut, short at the back and sides, luxurious at the top of the head, razor cut and gelled into curls that fall in two quotation marks on either side of the forehead. He's the 24-hour stubble chin of the evening, even for those who might not have his divinely dimpled cleft and cheeks. More than anything else he's the body of the moment, muscular, athletic, bronzed, willing to display his 'Fab Ab' (fabulous abdomen), at the drop of a T- shirt.

"The new look is very sporty," explains Divya, my guide for the day, "It's casual, but athletic."

It could be worn on a beach by the Baywatch babes, or on the ski slopes of Switzerland, but as seen on the sidewalks of Nungambakkam, the look belongs to what can only be described as "The melange generation."

"Do you know anything about textiles?" asks the athletic young man, who is selling a range of sportswear. When I shake my head, he produces a pair of grey and white speckled pants that he calls a "yoga pant". "This is a melange fabric. Do you know French," he asks. Obviously, he is certain that he has to deal with a very dim-witted member from some ancient civilisation. "Melange is a French word that means mixed. Can you see the way this fabric is mixed, grey and white? That is what we call a melange."

"This is a hooded pop-over," he says producing a short-sleeved garment, in a shiny lycra finish, with a hood at the back, a zipped front and tight waist. "It's very popular at the moment, guys slip it on, over their crew-cuts." I realise that we are in a new language territory altogether. When he says crew cut it means a T-shirt with a round neck, when he says polo, it means that the neck has a folded-over edge. As for carpenters, far from being the chaps who drive nails into the wall, with what we used to call a hammer, it means pants that have a multiplicity of pockets, down each leg, with one extra for keeping a wallet, small straps from which to dangle your monkey wrench, or spanner, should you get the urge to do a spot of plumbing, while lounging in your carpenters.

These are not to be mistaken for cargos, which are lighter, with an even greater selection of pockets that have flaps on them which you can bolt down with velcro strips. Cargos come in full sizes, short pant sizes up to the knees, in twills and lightweight materials, while carpenters are made in heavy gauge cotton.

"Is it a gender thing? Men wear carpenters, women wear cargos?" I ask, but this is really a dumb question, because clothes these days are meant to leap across differences and make statements. It's the melange generation, remember? This means that if hair colouring is in, both sexes can go for an auburn highlight, or a blond strand, or a zebra effect. If body-piercing is the done thing, guys will be sporting rings along the rim of their eyebrows, or flashing studs from the middle of their lower lip, no less than the girls. It's not just the girls who wear earrings today; it contributes to a macho look, among the guys. It's also cool and ethnic-looking, as Aamir Khan might agree with his Lagaan look.

As for piercing the tip of the tongue with a golden stud, how does one rate that? Is this ethnic chic, a nod to the face and tongue-piercers of Tamil Nadu, worshippers of Shiva, who drive spiked quills into their cheeks? "Of course not, tongue-piercing is a sexual turn on," I was assured, "that's why Scary Spice did it." The tongue-spikers of Tamil Nadu will still have to wait for their moment to arrive. What's interesting is that though the names change, the old fashions are still around. The fabrics are light, bright and mixed with lycra that appears to be everywhere. In short, the tops are neat with toggled sleeves, zips up the front and silver studs to fasten the slits that make up the pockets. Even the old-fashioned jeans that are now made of lycra- stretch denim have these studs on the pockets. "Lycra-stretch denims are smooth and tight-fitting, but do you notice how the bottoms are flared, that's called a boot finish," declares a sweet young thing.

"Boot leg?" I ask, "This looks just like a combination of the drainpipes and flares of the Sixties!" I exclaim, when Carnaby Street was the rage in London." Carnaby who?

"Fashion always comes back," says Divya sagely, "but today you'll find it's called something else. "Capri pants," I say. "No," she says, "those are clam diggers, that's what you wear on the beach while looking for clams, the pants reach all the way down to the middle of the calf." There are also cut-aways, which look as if they had been hacked half-way down the calf, besides fringed and pleated pants.

What have really changed are the accessories. Shoes might be made for walking, but for the melange set they are made for talking. If they are not boots, like those favoured by the German army, they are thick-soled and chunky, with heavy straps that make one think that they would be ideal for walking on the moon. No, not moonwalking, Jackson style, but for hanging on to a surface with weak gravity.

The most popular one at the moment belongs to the brand that has made a name for it with the suggestion to "Just Do It!" They are heavy slip-ons, casual, yet macho. Certainly, this is where you can separate the girls from the boys. One young girl was sitting at a table and sipping her cold coffee, wearing heels that looked as if they had been made out of soda water bottles, round discs of clear plastic, wedged to an improbable height made up the heels, while the sole was shaped like a boat in cork. When she stood up, she seemed to be water -skiing across the room, rather than merely walking. Platforms, wedgies, kitten heels, clear plastic heels with various motifs embedded in them, glass and crystal, like the famous Cinderella slipper, are just some of the variations on offer. Soon, it will be possible to take your gold fish for a walk, by keeping them in a floating tank built into your heel.

Hair is, however still the cutting edge. For, every girl who gets her hair cornrow plaited and then let loose to look like an unwashed hedge, there are those prepared to go the whole way.

"When I sent my daughter to the best-known design school, I never realised that she would come back re-designed," wailed a mother. "She came back home with her head shaved, completely bald, and a stud pierced though her lip. When I asked her why, she said it was a scientific experiment. She was testing gender stereotypes," she said. "Would people respond to her as a woman, once she had shaved off her hair?"

"What happened? How did the experiment fare?" I asked.

"Well, she certainly managed to turn heads," said the mother, "Wherever we went, people just stopped in their tracks and stared. But I haven't recovered. I am still in a state of shock."

To shock, to stare and be stared at. To flaunt, to fly, to walk the walk, to talk the new lingo, to be cool when temperatures flare. It's all part of the scene... Staying Alive! Bliss today is a bald head. Welcome to the new generation.

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