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Ihave been swimming since I was a baby – and I still do today as a middle aged woman of a certain age (I am somewhat obsessive about doing my 20 laps six days a week, seven months a year). I always wore what I thought to be a simple, modest one-piece swimsuit. I still wear the same type of swimsuit and see absolutely no reason to make any changes.
Now however, I look around myself at the pool and find my ‘modest’ swimming costume to be positively scandalous. What? No sleeves, skirt, zip up to the neck, leggings or even shorts built into the costume? Haw!
The difficulty of finding a suit suitable for swimming
As someone looking for the kind of swimsuit that will not persistently let yards of fabric get in the way of actual swimming, I have a hard time finding what I need. All I want is a suit that will not feel suffocating to don in the heat or take ages to peel oneself out of when wet.
I remember the disapproving look on the face of a man at a bricks and mortar store selling swimsuits some years back. ‘Nirlajj aurat’ (shameless woman) his eyes appeared to be saying when I assured him that I wanted a suit sans sleeves, skirt, pants, accoutrements of any sort. Shopping online should resolve the issue I thought, but there are difficulties there as well.
Type the keyword ‘swimsuit for women’ in a shopping website’s search box and these are the likely results: Something that looks like a tights and tee outfit for the gym, a scuba diving type onesie and an inexplicable outfit that is cross between a salwar kameez and a dress. At the other end of the spectrum are suits that are so revealing as to be completely impractical; which seem crafted more for titillation in the bedroom than anything else.
The concealing nature of the common or garden variety of Indian women’s swimsuits actually reveals a lot:
Our double standards
Even as the girls and women at the pool are shrouded in a variety of concealing swimwear on a scale of 1 to Burkini, the men do not appear similarly constrained. They can be seen cavorting in a variety of brief togs, ranging from some rather ill-advisedly small Speedos to regular trunks to what appear perplexingly akin to biking shorts.
While the women appear to be at pains to camouflage any bulges, stretch marks and cellulite the men seem to have no issues flaunting generous beer bellies and assorted unseemly hirsute bulges. Clearly ‘modesty’ is defined by one’s gender. We see this not merely at the pool but in other public spaces as well: While men can often be seen standing by the roadside, their shirts raised up, fondly stroking their bare bellies, a woman hurrying along, in a sleeveless outfit, eyes downcast, may be perceived as immodest.
Our prudery
Our society frowns on skin-show by women in general. This mindset is definitely on display at the swimming pool. There is just so much fabric utilized in the average women’s swimsuit – the shorts, leggings, short to full sleeves, fully covered back and front with a zip all the way up to the throat. Often there is a little skirt on top of it all to further obscure the shape of the form beneath all of that material.
Anyone with pretensions of actually being a swimmer should have no truck with all those miles of extra material, but evidently ‘modesty’ trumps practicality and freedom of movement. And yes it is prudery – what reason could there possibly be to put that ubiquitous frock swimsuit on a little 5-year-old girl?
Our colourism
Of course there is our colourism too – the world’s highest selling fairness cream is Indian because we as a society are so obsessed with fair skin. This is a big reason for wearing swimsuits that appear more suited for deep-sea diving in cold waters than a swimming pool in our acute tropical heat. The dreaded sun must be avoided at all costs, lest the combination of that and chlorinated water wreak havoc on female skin resulting in the dreaded tan.
Maybe that little girl in the frock swimsuit is wearing it not because it was foisted on her by a misguided parent, but because she herself insisted on it. Perhaps she wants to wear that because her mother or every other girl/woman at the pool is similarly outfitted. Or perhaps she has simply internalised the expectations of society and how women are expected to be ‘modest’? Perhaps she has been told how sharm to ladki ka gehna hai – and how it is a virtue that the female form wrapped up and hidden away? Therein lies the rub.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.