Can a grandmaster wear a dhoti?

You may have heard of the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and his jeans On December 28 at the Rapid World Chess Championship he was fined 200 by the International Chess Federation for wearing them even though it went against the tournamentrsquos dress code Carlsen 34 now became the worldrsquos top chess player at age 13 and has retained the Grandmaster title five times since thenBut he wasnrsquot having any jeans nonsense Hersquod been out at a lunch meeting and had barely had time to change his shirt and jacket When his jeans became an issue he doubled down and just walked out of the tournament rather than change out of themldquoIrsquom too old at this point to care too muchrdquo he said at an interview with Take Take Take a chess magazinerdquo Irsquoll probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer than hererdquoAll this pother over clothes got me wondering why a chess tournament even needs a dress code After all the objective is to crown the superior chess player not admire them for their sartorial elegance Yet somehow my colonised mind cannot imagine Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand of Mayiladuthurai Tamil Nadu showing up for the game like a true TamBram in a veshti nothing but a punool to cover his torso and three lines of ash on his forehead from evening prayersAs you can imagine with an overactive mind like mine one question led to others Why is a veshti unacceptable within a chess tournamentrsquos dress code Why should it matter if a girl wears a hijab to school Would a chairman command less respect if he showed up to work wearing midthigh boxer shorts with a business shirt and doublebreasted coat one of the official approved fashion statements for 2025At moments like this I like to strip down so to speak to the basics There are two moments in life that have no dress code when you are born and when you go to the great beyond We arrive and depart nakedEverything we became coy and demure about as we grow older is in plain sight at the beginning and end of life Itrsquos not till school that you first learn that in certain places you have to dress exactly like someone else or else face consequencesAs you grow older this becomes a recurring theme Managers must wear ties Women must dress like men in business suits because itrsquos a manrsquos world You should be able to tell a janitor apart from an account executive by their clothes Clothes are prescribed to set the rich apart from the notsorich the manager from the clerk The poor can wear whatever they wantFor example the dress codes for different ceremonies at the recent Ambani wedding were Indian Traditional Indian Formal and Indian Chic Invitees were expected to hire stylists and designers usually expensive to interpret those codes and craft three sets of garments each of which could cost anything upward of R50 lakh what with gold zari thread inlaid pearls diamonds and so on The dress code assumed that the invitees came from privilege and wealthNow therersquos a dress code that rules me right out of the pictureWhile an Ambani wedding dress code might signal how cringingly wealthy you are most dress codes are designed to tell you that you are not unique or one of a kind Therersquos nothing special about you and donrsquot you get uppity A dress code is a uniform to keep you in your placeThe most spectacular and brazen affront to dress codes was by a famous Indian and he pulled it off in the land of dress codes England In 1931 attending the Second Round Table Conference in London to negotiate Indiarsquos independence from British rule Gandhi arrived in the garb he had made famous a homespun cotton dhoti a shawl over his shoulders and open sandals Normal dress code at the House of Lords especially for such momentous meetings was a threepiece suit at leastBritain was scandalised Winston Churchill dismissed Gandhi as a ldquohalfnaked fakirrdquo But Gandhirsquos fashion statement was deliberate and remains an iconic moment in anticolonial resistance It stated clearly we donrsquot need you and your textile imports wersquore quite selfsufficient with our homespun khadi When he said ldquoI am wearing this because this is how the poorest in India dressrdquo he called attention to the abject poverty the British had inflicted on the countryAbove all Gandhirsquos attire was an act of peaceful resistance and nonviolent protest He had the moral high ground and it wasnrsquot long before many Britons began to appreciate his principlesAs for Magnus Carlsenrsquos fashion principles they continue to pay him dividends When he withdrew from the Blitz World Chess Championship of December 30 the International Chess Federation finally buckled and modified its dress code to allow jeans Meanwhile GStar Raw a jeans brand already in collaboration with Carlsen since 2010 triumphantly decided to revive its contract with himldquoMagnus made his position clear denim is for everyone always and everywheremdasheven on the chessboardrdquo the brand exultedMagnus Carlsen will be featured in the GStar Campaign launching in the second quarter of 2025You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper