Muumuu looks pretty only by candlelight!

A trend seems to have emerged in Pune (and perhaps many other places in India) over last couple of decades: Middle-class women wearing nightgown throughout the day and perhaps night. During my childhood sari was ubiquitous in most parts of India. Until almost 1990’s, I almost never saw a woman outside her home in a nightgown. Women used gowns only during hospitalization.

These days I see nightgowns everywhere any time of the day. In shops, at vegetable markets, during morning walks, at school gates, at school-bus pickup points, at funeral procession etc.

And the clothing is less of a gown and more of a muumuu. (Btw- Glamorous film star of yesteryears Mumtaz was known as Mumu)

I think this shows women are either overworked or have turned plain lazy or no one has told them that they should not be wearing a nightgown outside their homes at least during the day.

A muumuu reminds me of Homer Simpson from episode [3F05] King- Size Homer (Original airdate in N.A.: 5-Nov-95) where he promises his wife Marge that he would not wear the gown outside, promptly breaks the promise and gets humiliated.

I think nightgowns look pretty only by candlelight.


Artist: Barbara Shermund The New Yorker 18 Apr 1936