UNDER WRAPS
In the old parts of the city, where the azaan is heard five times a day and veiled women disappear into narrow lanes, the “dreaded” jeans—a symbol of western decadence for most old-timers—are not welcome. However, in Colonelganj, tucked-away from sight are jean manufacturing units where emaciated men bend over sewing machines.

In these cramped quarters, signs of change aren’t hard to find. A tailor shop advertises its skills in making the most trendy, western wear for women, including jeans. It is called “Naughty Girl”. Yet another shop is called “A Touch of New Feeling”.
Across the street, on a clothesline, a pair of woman’s jeans is hung to dry. In another quarter of the city called Chamanganj, where women drift in and out of shops selling henna and bangles, their burqas swishing around them, a shopkeeper, Javed Ahmed says he has seen denim, not salwars, underneath some of those long-flowing veils.
The popularity of jeans often meets stiff opposition. Ijaz Ahmed, a driver, can go on and on about the side effects of jeans. A resident of Baconganj in Kanpur, Ahmed says jeans is the biggest vice in the city of his ancestors. “This is destroying our society. But what can one do. Even in Muslim areas, women are wearing jeans,” he says. “Recently, some women eloped with men. They were the jeans-wearing type.”

THE JEAN POOL
In June, when four colleges banned jeans on campus in the city, women protested the move, demanding the authorities to scrap the “unreasonable” order that victimised them. College principals, drafted guidelines saying it was the need of the hour. They then tried to justify the ban saying that when girls wore tight-fitting jeans, men taunted them. According to the college principals, the women had to be modest, and wear clothes that wouldn’t get them in trouble.
Ajanta Chadha, principal of SN Sen Balika PG College where jeans have been banned for the last six years, says it wasn’t as if Kanpur suddenly took notice of jeans. They wore it in their time, too, but not in college, she says.

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