At first, I thought that this blog post might be a bit shallow, but realized that on the contrary, it is related to a topic that has been written about a lot in the academic blogosphere. FSP has a series of posts related to academic dressing tagged under the label "What to wear".
It is a topic on which my father and I have a lot of argument. My father is a retired army officer with a very sophisticated approach to dressing up. He is almost always dressed up formally, for example, here's him making tea: (pardon the crease on his coat- he had just arrived at N1 after a long flight and a jittery road journey!)[1]
He has a lot of trouble accepting the casual and extremely informal manner in which academics dress (especially those in my STEM field!)
I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite. I don't particularly try to dress formally and am fairly comfortable in a "casual dress" atmosphere.
During one of my job talks two years ago, my father graciously agreed to give me a ride to the institute. I thought it would also be good for him to experience the atmosphere at a research institute. However, as we set out to leave, he was "very concerned" to see me dress up in jeans. Despite his repeated remonstrances, I refused to change. He was not too pleased, but relaxed a little after arriving at the institute and realizing that he was the only formally dressed up person in the whole building.
My father strongly believes that one must dress appropriately for all occasions and cannot imagine how a professor can teach wearing shorts/jeans and T-shirts and still earn the respect of his/her students [2]. I have tried hard to convince him that most students don't care about how their profs dress and are more concerned about how and what they teach, but to no avail.
Recently, Doordarshan aired a small documentary on N1. I informed him about the timing and he sat down to watch it very eagerly. Though it is not the best documentary ever made, I personally enjoyed watching my favourite colleagues talking about the academic programmes at N1, their research equipments and labs, performance of students, N1's place in the scientific landscape of India etc. My father likes to read and talk about science and I expected that he might ask me more questions about these things when we talked later.
Later that evening, when I asked my father how he found the documentary, he said that although he found it very informative, he felt that it would have had a "higher impact" if the people shown in the documentary had dressed better. I argued with him once again and said that the documentary served its purpose by showcasing honestly what a typically normal day at N1 is like. Faculty members dressing up formally for one day just to shoot a documentary would have been superficial and unreal. But, he emphasised that dressing up and presenting oneself appropriately for a programme shown on National TV was very important. I tried very hard, but failed to convince him that "appropriate dressing" has different connotations in a military cantonment and an academic establishment.
Finally, to change the topic, he asked me why I was not in the documentary. I am very glad that I was not in the documentary. On the day it was being shot, I was very "inappropriately" dressed. I am not sure how he would have reacted to see his daughter on National TV wearing a black T-shirt and blue capris!
[1] The reason he is in the kitchen making tea and not me is because he is also very particular about how he likes his evening tea.
[2] I once introduced him to a colleague who was heading towards the institute one morning. My father later asked me if this person was the PT instructor!
It is a topic on which my father and I have a lot of argument. My father is a retired army officer with a very sophisticated approach to dressing up. He is almost always dressed up formally, for example, here's him making tea: (pardon the crease on his coat- he had just arrived at N1 after a long flight and a jittery road journey!)[1]
He has a lot of trouble accepting the casual and extremely informal manner in which academics dress (especially those in my STEM field!)
I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite. I don't particularly try to dress formally and am fairly comfortable in a "casual dress" atmosphere.
During one of my job talks two years ago, my father graciously agreed to give me a ride to the institute. I thought it would also be good for him to experience the atmosphere at a research institute. However, as we set out to leave, he was "very concerned" to see me dress up in jeans. Despite his repeated remonstrances, I refused to change. He was not too pleased, but relaxed a little after arriving at the institute and realizing that he was the only formally dressed up person in the whole building.
My father strongly believes that one must dress appropriately for all occasions and cannot imagine how a professor can teach wearing shorts/jeans and T-shirts and still earn the respect of his/her students [2]. I have tried hard to convince him that most students don't care about how their profs dress and are more concerned about how and what they teach, but to no avail.
Recently, Doordarshan aired a small documentary on N1. I informed him about the timing and he sat down to watch it very eagerly. Though it is not the best documentary ever made, I personally enjoyed watching my favourite colleagues talking about the academic programmes at N1, their research equipments and labs, performance of students, N1's place in the scientific landscape of India etc. My father likes to read and talk about science and I expected that he might ask me more questions about these things when we talked later.
Later that evening, when I asked my father how he found the documentary, he said that although he found it very informative, he felt that it would have had a "higher impact" if the people shown in the documentary had dressed better. I argued with him once again and said that the documentary served its purpose by showcasing honestly what a typically normal day at N1 is like. Faculty members dressing up formally for one day just to shoot a documentary would have been superficial and unreal. But, he emphasised that dressing up and presenting oneself appropriately for a programme shown on National TV was very important. I tried very hard, but failed to convince him that "appropriate dressing" has different connotations in a military cantonment and an academic establishment.
Finally, to change the topic, he asked me why I was not in the documentary. I am very glad that I was not in the documentary. On the day it was being shot, I was very "inappropriately" dressed. I am not sure how he would have reacted to see his daughter on National TV wearing a black T-shirt and blue capris!
[1] The reason he is in the kitchen making tea and not me is because he is also very particular about how he likes his evening tea.
[2] I once introduced him to a colleague who was heading towards the institute one morning. My father later asked me if this person was the PT instructor!
