This Article is From Jun 14, 2011

Kolkata: Artists protest western dress code

Kolkata: 65 years after independence, some clubs in Kolkata still have a very strict dress code: men must wear either formal western attire  or the national outfit - a dhoti and kurta.

Last Wednesday, leading artist Shuvaprasanna was not allowed to dine at the 104 year old Calcutta Club as he was wearing a kurta-pajama.  This enraged many who viewed this as an imposition of a colonial dress code.

On Monday, Shuvaprasanna and other artists from Kolkata  protested at the gates of the club.

Back in the 1990s, the club had even turned away MF Husain for being barefoot. But these protestors feel its time colonial rules were re-thought and have written to club authorities saying so.

Will the Calcutta Club oblige?  Unlikely, most say, especially for a club that  restricted membership to women until 2007,  but with pariborton in the air, no one is ruling out the seemingly impossible.

.