Threadbare but Timeless: My One and Only Outfit

Threadbare but Timeless: My One and Only Outfit

There’s a curious kind of freedom in being relieved of choices. Imagine a world where one outfit is all you are allowed — no daily decisions, no wardrobe dilemmas, no fleeting fads to follow. While it may sound like a punishment in today’s fashion-obsessed world, for someone like me, it feels more like a poetic possibility — a chance to define oneself through comfort, clarity, and simplicity.

If ever compelled to wear a single outfit for the rest of my life, my choice would be deliberate and deeply rooted in timeless elegance. It would be an ivory full-sleeved linen kurta, paired with a charcoal grey churidar pyjama, and adorned with a light, hand-woven cotton or pashmina stole draped across the shoulders like a gentle whisper of tradition.

Why this attire, you ask?

Because it breathes.

It neither binds nor boasts. It’s the kind of outfit that does not demand to be noticed but always ends up being remembered. With its soft contours and unassuming grace, it speaks the language of sages and poets, thinkers and wanderers — those who walk life’s path not to impress, but to express.

This outfit isn’t confined to any single season or social setting. It is both ceremony and solitude. It can accompany me to a book reading, a spiritual discourse, or an evening walk with equal ease. The linen kurta flutters like thought in the breeze; the churidar hugs the stride like rhythm follows rhyme; and the stole — ah, the stole! — it rests like a sigh of wisdom on the shoulders of a storyteller.

And to complement this thought, here is a poem that gently wraps itself around the essence of this attire — like the outfit itself:

Draped in Silence

— a companion poem

In thread and fold, no diamonds shine,
Yet grace resides in each simple line.
No glitter, gloss, nor velvet cloak,
Just linen’s breath and cotton’s yoke.

A kurta soft, like dawn’s first breeze,
Sleeves that whisper with quiet ease.
Churidar wraps like olden lore,
Of sages’ steps on temple floor.

No tie to bind, no collar’s choke,
Just open air and dreams bespoke.
A stole rests gently, like a sigh,
Of monsoon winds beneath the sky.

Not stitched for show or worldly game,
But clothed in thought, not pride or fame.
For style may fade, and fashions die,
But soul-worn grace shall never lie.

Let others chase their mirrored selves,
Stacked high in wardrobes, crowded shelves.
Give me one robe, wise and true,
To walk the world, in peace, in view.

This imagined constancy of clothing, then, becomes more than just fabric. It becomes philosophy — the sutra that holds together the scattered thoughts of the day, the prayer woven not in sound but in thread.

As the old idiom reminds us, “Clothes make the man.” But in this case, the chosen attire doesn’t make me more — it helps me become less: less distracted, less burdened, less artificial. And in that less, I find more — clarity, purpose, peace.

So if I must wear one outfit again and again, let it not be a uniform of monotony, but a robe of meaning. Simple, soulful, and serenely mine!