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‘He/ Him/ She/ Her/ It/ They/ Them… I slay in all’

Fashion stylist Pushpak Sen on the liberation that wearing a sari brings

"It was in Florence that I decided to wear saris outside for the first time."

Small acts of everyday freedom go a long way in establishing who we are as a people, and who we may want to become as a society and a nation. Ahead of Independence Day, we bring you stories of little acts of defiance, endless notes of possibilities.

Pushpak Sen, 27

Stylist and digital content creator at The Bong Munda, Kolkata

I wish I could say I am doing something extraordinary, but really, I am not the first man with a beard to be wearing a sari. It had all started when I was in school at Calcutta Boys School in Kolkata. I had always been interested in fashion, in dressing well and dressing to stand out — something that is not usual among school-going boys. So, for any function in school, I would wear my father’s dhuti-panjabi to the event. One day, I discovered quite fortuitously that the length of a dhuti is not too different from the length of a sari and that would be the beginning of my experiments with the sari. I was about 15 then.

Teenage is never easy on anyone but for a queer person, it is particularly hard. Ask any boy who is effeminate or a girl who is still trying to understand her identity and they’ll tell you all the jokes and the jibes that come their way for being “different”. I know it comes from a place of incomprehension and curiosity, from a lack of awareness, but that understanding still doesn’t take away from the hurt of being at the receiving end of the worst and crudest of jokes.

What helped me though was the fact that my family is progressive. They have always stood behind me like a rock. My father was a scientist, he retired from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 2018. My mother’s a businesswoman. Both my parents have been my biggest cheerleaders. I have never had to consider things like coming out. When you think of it, why should the onus of coming out be on us? It’s the heteronormative society that has created closets and shoved the LGBTQIA+ community into it, invisibilising us. Why should I take it upon myself to come out for them?

In 2014, when I moved to Asutosh College to study English Literature, I started documenting my fashion journey on social media as The Bong Munda. I was not prepared for the reception that it would get. Through college and university and later during the pandemic, its popularity grew and grew, giving me the confidence that I was on the right track. When the world opened up, I decided to pursue a second Master’s, this time in fashion communication at the Polimoda in Florence, Italy.

Photo of Pushpak Sen.

It was in Florence that I decided to wear saris outside for the first time. I told myself I had heard everything already, I had nothing to lose. At the time, it was my mother who gave me courage. When I called her, she told me, “Sari jodi porbe thik korechho, to thik kore poro (If you are going to wear saris, you must learn to wear them properly). Look up some YouTube videos, learn how to make the kuchi (pleats) fall properly. It’s a fabulous garment, you must do it justice.” The first sari I wore outside was my grandmother’s tangail jamdani. There has been no looking back since.

In Florence, I would wear the sari with a bindi regularly to class. In conversations with my classmates, in how easily they accepted me in it, I would realise how the sari had ceased to be just a piece of clothing — it was my garment of freedom, part of my identity, a repository of my cultural history.

I remember the first sari that I bought for myself — it was at the Sonajhuri haat in Santiniketan and the red handloom sari cost me Rs 300. Now, I have worn saris everywhere around the world. My journey with the sari and the bindi has taught me one thing — in real life, people are much more accepting than they are online. Their sense of propriety makes room for restraint. It is easier to go out in public in a sari because there can only be one of three reactions — surprise, shock or anger. It stops at a few eye rolls, a couple of snide comments, at discomfiting stares. I can deal with that. I am aware of my enormous privilege, and I don’t want to reduce the sari to a gimmick. I wear it with pride and dignity.