|
The other day, when my daughter dressed up to go to a friend’s party, I was intrigued to note two straps that ran up her back and were knotted behind the neck. “Is that a swimsuit you’re wearing under your tee?” I asked her. “It’s an inner,” she scowled back at me. “An inner,” I was intrigued, “is that like…?” “Yes, yes,” she said, clearly embarrassed by my interest in her lingerie. “But why is it knotted up behind?” I continued to probe further. “Because it’s a halter, get it?” she retorted, before stalking out of the room.
Women’s “inners” are usually a source of great mystery to us men, not that I hadn’t had some experience in the matter. I remember being arm-twisted by a friend to buy her some intimate wear when I went on my first ever trip overseas to attend a conference in Bangkok. But saying yes is one thing, actually getting down to buying it quite another, as I discovered to my discomfort in the women’s retail end at a downtown mall.
For starters, how do you explain to a female attendant who speaks limited English just what it is you are looking for. So, after I’d said “Er…” a couple of times, she pointed me understandingly to a large basket that seemed to be full of lacy confections. All I had to do was select what I wanted and have it packed and billed. Still, it was distinctly unpleasant pulling out itsy-bitsy pieces of nylon and holding them up to check for size, and to look for matching counterparts. Even that I might have got through if I hadn’t looked up just then to see my editor watching me with an amused expression from across the hall…
A couple of years later, I was attempting to smuggle in another cache of female apparel for a colleague — this was in the pre-liberalisation days when Marks & Spencer was an Indian’s version of consumer heaven — only to have the large lady at the customs counter raise her eyebrows at the volume of very personal wear occupying half the suitcase. “Wife?” she queried. “No, no,” I quaked, “I’m a bachelor.” “Girlfriend?” she asked. “No,” I nodded again. “Pervert!” she posted her verdict, purloining a few pieces that I could have told her wouldn’t fit, before I was allowed to pass.
Since then, my brush with women’s lingerie has been considerably curtailed, though there were the mandatory gifts from friends or family coming in from abroad that invariably included wispy, lacy nighties that I knew for certain nobody’s wives, at least, would wear. Invariably, they’d be consigned to lie at the back of the wardrobe so the children couldn’t lay their hands on them. “Why don’t you just give them away,” I asked my wife once, “I’m sure the part-time maid would love to have them!” “And have her gossip about the kind of clothes she’ll think I wear when I’m alone at home,” my wife retorted.
But now, wanting to be a progressive parent, I followed my daughter into her room to tell her I might be able to buy her her inners whenever I travelled, if only she could let me see what they looked like. “You’re a pervert,” shouted my daughter, “you want to look at a bra, go and look at your wife’s!”
I knew I’d got off to a bad start, and hoping to make amends with a parcel of intimate wear bought from a Khan Market store, I decided to check out what she might like — which is how my wife discovered me, sifting through the drawers where my daughter kept her inners. “Ohmygod!” she gasped, “Are you some kind of pervert?”
Clearly, my lingerie buying days are well behind me.
|
(12 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5)
Loading ...
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:04 am
ur articles r alwyz funny….but i guess this time u really sounded like a - “Pervert”!!
October 4th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
geezzz if i had found my dad fumbling in my drawers, i would have screamed my sanity off! dude, keep your hands off your daughter’s undies
Nice blog btw!
October 5th, 2006 at 11:53 am
It’s fun to read, fun to think. But a daughter will feel more humiliated. Fine, such a liberated Dad would be good.
Your blog post reminds of Joggers park (a film). Where what to accept and how to go along.
October 5th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
its funny to read but if i was your beti it will be very difficult to handle a dad like . luckily i am man and not your beti..
on a seroius note ya what you said its in every man …
you worte we read …
October 6th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Ha ha ha..
.. pervert!!!!! 
October 9th, 2006 at 12:03 am
SHABAASH INDIA………………….
October 9th, 2006 at 7:02 am
no way!!!u did that!!! i would have screamed my head off if my father was looking for my undies n jeking them out… i think u gotta tone down on all that ‘inner thingies.”
October 10th, 2006 at 1:14 am
Whoa. I’m not sure if you are writing this to be funny or if it actually happened, but that is a little disturbing. I’d think once your daughter grows up to be the age where she’s wearing halter ‘inners’ , that you’d respect her privacy and her personal space. Im a 26 year old guy - and no body is getting close to my underwear except dem ladies.
If you were writing this to be funny, well….I’m not sure if it hit the mark.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Nice writing style…funny in parts…cut to reality…dad rummaging through daughter’s inner wear is a eeeeooowwwww!
October 11th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Interesting one. just the other day I enquired of the same with my teen age daughter she gave me one her nastiest looks & stormed out for her friends B’day party………Post which I was taken to solitary cell by my wife for some gyaan.
; - ) have shared this one with with my father in law & wife too ha ha ha
October 24th, 2006 at 11:11 am
This is father’s obession to make her daughter look beautiful misinterpreted as man’s obession to make a young lady look beautiful.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Leave the lingerie buying to ur daughter’s bf man. Everybody got some roles to play and look best when performed by the right person.
If your daughter asks you to buy thts different but you offering it doesn’t make sense. Even if you are keen then you should hve approached it via your wife.
November 8th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Crap!!!!!!!!!!! just cant believe. Indian society dont allow such a thing if u r doing u dont deserve to be in the same as of now, however things r changing so cant predict about .1% indians who r progressive enough. Anyways, My opinion, No part of the world allow father’s rummage of daughter’s drawer to get her undies.
December 21st, 2006 at 10:29 pm
u just can’t look for ur daugter’s undies man!!!!!!!! even if it was meant for exploring into female undies u stood a better chance at shops. as far as my opinion goes our indian culture doesn’t approve this act of urs.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Kishore, we have worked together for many years — wish BS let me also write such stories — I have a lot more experiences than u when it comes to buying lingerie!! But how can you be writing such stories, even if it is on your blog — where do you find the time? Its unfair that you do such stories, while I am busy with kite-flying on the Hutch-Essar tangle. In fact, some of my recent stories on Hutch-Essar can be carried in your Sunday edition as “fiction”.
May 21st, 2007 at 7:06 am
that was a cute even moving piece except the bit about editor smiling from the other side of the hall. Had I been in your place, I would have had a stroke. but is it a blog? Or a piece written in your column? Its a pity if it has not been published. I think many daughters wont mind if their fathers were to take any interest in buying them their inners. But most fathers have little time for their kids. These days even mothers dont have time.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
How could ask your daughter directly man? I think you could generate a “How could you…” feeling amongst the readers by writing so…