We’re talking about Bollywood, where a short & stout Mughal emperor Akbar is depicted as a tall and toned sex symbol in a Filmfare award-winning portrayal. That’s Bollywood for you, an industry known for unnecessarily glamorizing anything and everything. The trailer of Ashutosh Gowarikar’s latest period drama Mohenjo Daro opens with subtitles, “It’s imperative that I tell you the truth about the past. Or else, the future generations will never know, the truth or goodness, of Mohenjo Daro.” The subtitles were juxtaposed on the visual where Hrithik Roshan, is wearing bifurcated dhoti trousers and cut & sewn top – garments that never existed in the Mohenjo Daro period. “Hello, it’s me,” sings irony.
The costumes are designed by Emmy award winner April Ferry and three-time National award winner Neeta Lulla. The latter designed the breathtaking costumes in Jodhaa Akbar. One can study the differences between Rajput & Mughal costumes by watching Jodhaa Akbar and that should explain the quality of Neeta Lulla’s costume design. So, how did two incredible talents succumb to exotic desi stereotypes and create garments irrelevant to the Mohenjo Daro era?
TROUSERS WEREN’T PROMINENT IN MOHENJO DARO
India is a hot and humid nation and due to climatic conditions, both men and women living in Mohenjo Daro simply wrapped a rectangular cloth in lungi style. Bifurcated garments gain prominence much later sometime around Kushanas.
Here is one of the earliest documented evidence of trousers in the Kushana statue… approx. 2000 years after Indus Valley Civilization.
NO LAYERING
Men and women predominantly left their upper bodies uncovered in the Mohenjo Daro era. People occasionally draped fabric across the shoulders. Layering different pieces of clothing wasn’t in vogue in the IVC era.
GARMENTS WERE MORE DRAPED THAN CUT & SEW
Elaborately cut & sewn garments like kurta, jama or trousers weren’t prominent in the Mohenjo Daro era. People simply draped their garments over the body back then – a custom that evolved into modern saris and dhotis.
PRINTED FABRICS
The earliest reference of printed cotton in India comes approximately around 300BC. The ancient art of textile printing was popularized sometime roughly around the 4th and 5th centuries BC. The elaborately printed turban is a bit way too ahead of time.
FABRIC DYE COLOUR
Indus Valley Civilization had access to fabric dyes. Although the only surviving fragment of coloured cloth is dyed red with madder, historians believed indigo and turmeric were used. However, colours like purple didn’t exist in the era. The oldest known pigment of purple was made from mollusc extracted from Mediterranean Sea snail, recorded since 4BC. The colour was so expensive back then that only the noble class could afford it – the reason why purple is associated with royalty and luxury. The men in the screenshots have travelled to the future and obtained the rich purple fabrics.
WOMEN DIDN’T WEAR BRA
Women left their upper bodies uncovered for most of our clothing history. But censor board gives no choice to filmmakers since Mohenjo Daro clothing culture isn’t acceptable in modern Indian society. During the Mauryan era, women still covered their upper body with breastbands known as patidhi… but they didn’t wear modern bras at least till British Raj happened.
SUPPOSED TO BE UNGENDERED CLOTHING
Back in Indus Valley Civilization, clothing of men and women is supposed to be more similar than different – WRAPPED GARMENTS, DUH!
PRISTINE WHITES DIDN’T EXIST
Though bleaching technique was known to ancient Indians, they mostly used natural bleaching techniques like sun drying etc and not chemicals like chlorine or peroxides. As a result, fabrics of ancient India came in tints & shades of white rather than in pristine white.
PEOPLE IN MOHENJO DARO WERE DARK-SKINNED
Natives of Indus Valley Civilization, often regarded as Dravidians (or proto-Dravidians) by most scholars due to cultural & linguistic similarities, were dark-skinned people. Light skinned Yamnaya pastoralists or Indo-Aryan nomads established provinces in modern-day Pakistan-Afghan regions around 1500BC – which also coincidentally marks the end of Indus Valley Civilization.
POSSIBLE SKIN TONE & FACIAL BONE STRUCTURE OF PEOPLE IN MOHENJO DARO…
AND THE HORSE DEBATE…
Indus Valley Civilization knows nothing about horse or horse chariots as the animal isn’t native to India. From time to time people have come up with what appear to be the bones of quasihorses, protohorses like the donkey, or the Dawn Horse, or the ass or onager; but horse bones are hard to decipher, and these are much disputed. Wild horses aren’t naturally found in India due to environmental factors. It is widely regarded that horses first came to India after/around 1700BC when Yamnaya pastoralists or Indo-Aryan nomads migrated to India.
Note: Brahminical supremacists claim that Aryans are the original inhabitants of both Harappan & Vedic civilization. However, archaeological finds, the study of linguistic migration, DNA haplogroups and other socio-cultural transitions render that the Indo-Aryan group was related only to the Vedic culture and not the preceding Harrapan civilization.