Tamil Nadu - Chennai

It is raining colours, fashion statements too

Chennai: Capris teamed with a comfy jacket or black denims folded little below the knee and paired with brown sandals. Look, who is making a fashion statement in this rainy weather?

The city’s monsoon only seems to have brightened most office cubicles, at least since the last couple of days. Cabins dotted with umbrellas, rest rooms dripping with water from colourful raincoats and female staff dressed in bright floral prints or polka dots to make sure no mud slash is visible – the rains have brought in a riot of colours to the otherwise, formal mandatory dressing at the workplace.

Companies which are generally particular that employees adhere to the dress code seem to have relaxed most rules or just seem to be ignoring all what they are seeing, thanks to the incessant rains.

Ashok Rajendran, senior development engineer, CISCO on Friday had to wade through three-ft deep water to reach his office in Thoraipakkam from Palavakkam. “I commute on a two-wheeler and only if there is a light rain does raincoat come of help, otherwise I make several stops, fold my trousers and walk through the water,” he says. His colleague, V.Saravanan, coming from Velachery came to office dressed in shorts, with a pair of fresh clothes safely tucked in the bike to later change on to them.

Casual or semi-formals are the favourite bet of most employees who commute to work on two-wheeler or those using the public transport. Not only schools and colleges, most companies on the OMR stretch had even declared it as a holiday.

But, what if one failed to adhere to the office dress code?

“Generally a mail is sent to all the staff if we are seen violating the dress code,” says Lakshmi Sankari, working with Wipro Technologies. “But because of the rains nobody so far has objected to our colleagues walking around in folded jeans and slippers.”

Others who are not comfortable with shorts came to office in the traditional vesti.

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