“Nostalgic Echoes: Bell Bottom Fad of the 1970s”

I still faintly remember my Uncles in their 20s wearing elephant trunk like pants which would sweep the floor as they walk. The pant would narrow down towards the knees and suddenly open up towards the bottom like a funnel, with the feet barely visible. It however successfully hid ugly, ill shaped, fileria (seen in coastal Odisha) stricken legs. Every odd is a style, so was this.

The fashion probably came from the movies as you can clearly see the pattern from the lead actors and actresses wearing those bell bottom pants in the 1970s. My grandfather never liked those wearing bell bottom or keeping long hippie style hair. He branded them as CHHATARA (girl chasing vagabonds) and BAZAARIs (free roaming loafers wandering in a market). Cinema, Ciagarette, Cycle (bicycle) were common paraphernalia of a Chhatara or a Bazaari those days. Now bicycles are long pass and replaced by fancy motorcycles.

I remember my short height cousin wearing a bell bottom trouser. I used to poke fun at her – “Gettum (shorty), wearing Bell bottom”. But what wasn’t funny was the extra hardship faced by the women folks of the household manually washing the bell bottom pants which would frequently go dirty as the rounded bottom captured all dust like a vacuum cleaner. Remember, those day in India the washing machines were at infancy and still a dream of the majority.

I have heard many stories about excesses by police cutting off the bell bottom trousers of errand youngsters from knee downwards, taking advantage of their unbridled power during the Emergency period in India between 1975 – 1977. If police din’t like you for some reason or had a grudge against you they forcibly cut down the hippie hair of the youngsters. Not sure how far are these true or they are simply hearsays. But what I was sure that the fashion of bell bottom bottomed out with the arrival of the 1980s. It was no more fashionable when we turned into teenagers. I missed the bell bottom fad by a whisker.