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Life being carried out primarily in the street. Yet at night completely cut off. The street locked out, separate, as a wild untrusting area.

Someone told me that the streets of the gullies (Benares being one of the oldest cities in the world) were constructed in such a narrow and twisting manner for protection, that a few men blocking an alley could hold off an army. I doubt this is the real reason, but it is interesting, more like it grew haphazardly by one person building a mud house next to another without plan or much thought to the way of streets. I'm sure Benares was a walled in city like most ancient far-eastern cities, with entrance gates and guards for protection.

The movements of the body + climate originally dictated the manner of dress - this manner of dress becomes over centuries formalized accepted and classified according to class. Perhaps that is too simple, for Indian dress is fused in a wholeness of Indian life on a symbolic and practical level. Anyway clothes become formalized but the traditional Indian dress sometimes is impractical in twentieth century occupations. Then it is that the clothes dictate the movement allowed. Wearing Indian clothes gives you a different feeling,

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you become subtly different. Among the young clothes are of course a major status symbol. Almost all university students wear western dress because to be aligned with the west is a symbol of prestige, affluence. In the popular Hindi films the heroes almost always wear western dress, and the characters that are made fun of, the chowkidars, servants, in comic parts, wear Indian dress. Subtleties in Indian dress distinguish class. All Indians are adroit in draping of fabric, even the lowest and poorest of men can wear a rag with style, a simple piece of cloth can be made elegant by the way it is folded over the body, by the way it hangs and moves with the human frame. Indian basic material is thin porous, washes quickly and when hung in the sun dries in a few minutes. One fabric may be used in many ways; as a towel, a head piece, wrapped around the waist for a main garment, used over the shoulder as a shaw.

May 10, 70

Sleeping on the roof, community feeling, aware of presence of other bodies on nearby roof. Mr + Mrs Singh hay their straw mats and pads, sheets on pillows on the concrete, they have only been married a year or so, no children. The wife giggles, they chatter back and forth laughing. Before they sleep, she takes some oil from