New Dress Code, Old Couture – An Ode To The Humble Pyjama During Lockdown

Work from home often means we stay all day in our pyjamas, that humble piece of clothing that’s taken for granted. An ode.

I sit cross-legged, the keyboard perched on my lap, eyes occasionally on the screen, my thoughts flow freely as the keys go click clack click clack. There is a certain ease to my being, a freedom of choice and comfort. I look around, wondering it can’t only be the lockdown. What is it?

What could be greater than the comfort of one’s own home. A decent roof to live under with uninterrupted wi-fi, a helping husband and a sensible child! Ah, how could I forget the wireless keyboard that lets me turn 45 degrees, lounge on my ergonomically designed work chair and type away to glory.

Of the other privileges I am bestowed, I would equally like to show them off as the sole reason for my ease of mind these days. The humble good old PYJAMA, yes our PJ’s.

Isn’t it the most comfortable utility around in the lockdown days? I slip them on in the morning and God knows when they leave my twin thighs except my death bed? On a more comfortable note, aren’t pyjamas the coolest thing around? Argue with me, if you do not spend a considerable part of your day not dressed up in one of those? If you don’t get a mini-heart attack when your mum deliberately throws in all of your Pjs into the laundry because they smell terrible? You don’t part with them at all, where’s the time to wash them?

Everyone endorses pyjamas

So when celebrated author Twinkle Khanna came out with her second book ‘Pyjamas are Forgiving”, she must have had this epiphany that if the human race gets stripped to the basic necessities in the kalyug, pyjamas will come to their rescue. The planet didn’t forgive us, but the pyjamas will, they always have.

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From a heartbreak to a post-partum time. From a bad-hair day to PMS. From an urgent meeting to an urgent selfie, they have stood by us all.

So when the PM announced, “ghabrane ki koi baat nahi hai, zarurat ki sari cheezein uplabdh rahengi lockdown mein”, I wished he had declared the humble good old chap as an essential. Although I’m blessed with plenty of them in all hues, colours and stripes, even the varieties that have taken a particular shape owing to the amount of time my butt has spent in them.

A new normal?

Tell me, haven’t all those memes showing formally dressed employees from waist-up garnered a few giggles from you. That is also how my neighbor dressed up her daughter for an online zoom class at 8.30 in the morning. It took me a while to fathom why is the little tot dressed up in school uniform from top and frolicking in her crocs and shorts from below. Not a funny selfie moment, but the new normal I perceive.

Honestly, I could literally eat, sleep, drink, take a dump, homeschool my kid and even teach English to a bunch of kids in my pyjamas. I would part with them only for the purpose of washing. But then, P2 would get to caress my cushy thighs for as long as P1 and then the chain just continues until they start tearing up from in there because of over use or too much love I like to call it. No thank God for heavy thighs, a goal I have not been able to achieve even during my endless sessions. Guess, someone said it right, “old friends are like fat thighs, they stick together”

Such is my connection with my old friends PJs who are literally sticking by me in these trying times. Wait till the fashion capital comes out with Fall Winter 2020 PJS Collection owing to the incessant demand arising out of the fat thighs and lazy bottoms that we will breed all these months.

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