How to wear an Onnara/ Thaar

Last day, I happened to surf the web on this topic - Onnara/ Thaar. Surprisingly, I got a description (may not be excellent ... and something is better than nothing ! ) in one of the sites. I copied the text and and it's here for you.

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How to wear an Onnara.

Onnara is one and half sized mundu, nearly six muzham in length. This is wrapped over the buttocks and the two free ends are kept at equal length. One end is pulled up to the face level and the other end is tightly wound over this and the end inserted at the right side of belly. Then leave the top end and it will drop the other end and the conical end will be touching the ground almost. Now kneel down and catch the back portion of the mundu and bring it up to the waist under the conical flap portion dropping down. Now spread the legs little bit and insert this portion in between bottom belly and the edge of the dhothi. This portion will be tight now over the pelvis, the thighs will be covered upto the knee fully and partially downwards. Now the final process starts. Bring one hand to the back and catch the dropping conical front end through the spreaded legs (between thighs) and pull the end as much tight as possible and nicely insert the tail portion in between the back over the buttock and cloth.

By now for ladies of some good structure some statue look will be there and curves and shape of the back will be well displayed. In olden days only a plain dothi used to be worn over this so that the onnara will be partially visible through the cloth. Now there is one underskirt for fully covering the onnara. Still the buttock shape will be prominent with an onnara and any brand of panty can't keep the structure like this.

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KSWDC

A bit of research on the net. Yeah.. that's on Onnara / Thaar. I could find some official reference of 'Onnaramundu' in the website of Kerala State Womens Development Corporation. Let me reproduce a paragraph therein. You may also visit the site at :

http://www.kswdc.org/costumes_ornaments.htm

Extract from the web page of KSWDC on the costumes and ornaments of Kerala women.

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In the earlier days, it was very easy to identify a women belonging to different caste/community with their dress codes. Well in that too there were close association in the sense that Hindu, Christian and Muslim women generally preferred white clothes. Christian women wore a long white garment which is folded with a number of fan-like fringes behind and a jacket is worn over the upper part of the body. While Muslim women wear a white garment from waist to ankles and a white jacket with long sleeves. Purdah and burqa-wearing Muslim women were a common scene. While the typical item in the dress of Nair, Kshatriya, Ambalavasi and some other communities of women was the onnaramundu. Over this was worn the upper garment, mundu, and the blouse. While going out, a longer cloth of finer texture, neriatu, is worn over the shoulders. Besides, the traditional outfit of malayali woman was Neriathu’ and ‘Mundu’. Among, young girls and teenagers it was full skirt and blouse’ and ‘half sari’ (full skirt, short blouse and a davani (shawl).

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Thaar and Onnara in Wikipedia

Sometime back, I asked you whether you ever searched for the word "Thaar" or "Onnara" on the web. After a long search, you'll realise that it's just not there at all in any dictionary or encyclopedia, even now. It's absolutely essential to add these to an encyclopedia, as the next generation would find this most interesting and useful.

Any dictionary or Encyclopedia would give the word 'thar'. That's right ... but that's about the 'Thar desert' ! May be you'll get the 'thars'... that's the 'varayaadukal'.

That made me decide to put the words in the Wikipedia. { Thank God, it's nice. They allow you to include new knowledge elements into the Wikipedia, and edit them. Anyone can contribute to such topics. That's collaborative knowledge addition. }

So, now you can look for "Thaar" and "Onnara" in Wikipedia. Here is the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page  Once you are in, search for these words.  Alternately, you may go direct to Onnara. 

I request YOU all to add more to this, preferably with good pictures of thaar / onnara, and related antareeyam.

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Thaar and Paalathaar

Differentiate the words - Thaar and Paalathaar ( പാളത്താര്‍ ) .

What our women normally wear is the antareeyam Thaar.

Paalathaar is not an innerwear. It's a way of draping a saree, by many Brahmin sects (and others in many Northern states).

To make that clear, I'll show you a picture (taken from another article in the Web) of Paalathaar.

The compulsive confessor

Meenakshi's blog : The compulsive confessor.   If you haven't read it, I suggest you should. Atleast for its fanfare. And you may be knowing that Meenaakshi has her malayalam genes (She's the daughter of Writer /Novelist  N.S.Madhavan). 

This week she writes about the skinny jeans and underwear. Here is a bit what she wrote:

* I am also giving up on the Skinny Jeans phenomenon. I've tried them on over and over again and I cannot for the life of me figure out who these jeans are supposed to be flattering. I have extraordinarily skinny legs and an ass that is almost non-existant. These jeans skinnify my legs even more BUT push my ass out so I look.. well.. really weird. Pair that with an empire waist top and you know I've got some serious body issues.

Something I do like though is boy shorts, which, wouldn't you know it, is underwear. So much more comfortable than a thong, make my ass look VISIBLE (seriously!) and are kinda cool in a hipster sorta way. They're also good to wear under dresses when you don't want your pantyline to show and come in all sorts of awesome patterns. My two favourites right now are ones with cassettes on it with "Feel the beat" on the waistband and similar ones with zebra faces on it and "Drive Me Wild". LOVE them. I wish they were outerwear too.

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Are you dreaming now of  "The Skinny and the Thaar" ! ?