"Boys from good families don't wear earrings," I was told by my mum several years ago. I was determined to get my ears pierced, and my parents were equally determined not to let me.

One day, while my family was watching an episode of the Mahabharata on TV, something struck me, that had slipped my notice up until then. Virtually all of the male characters had earrings, including the revered Shri Krishna. "Ha-ha," I thought to myself, lets see how they argue against this one.

"Mum, you know the other day you said something about how its not nice for boys to have earrings, then why do all the Pandavas and Shri Krishna have earrings?"

Quite baffled by the question, she gave a jumbled answer, and then told me to stop disturbing everyone. I stayed quiet for a while, only to renew my question once the program had finished. Once again, my mum gave a jumbled answer, something along the lines of "Well, that was thousands of years ago," and once again told me to be quiet because she had to make lunch for everyone.

After lunch I resumed questioning, this time with a new argument added to my arsenal. I dug up a photograph of my grandfather (who was in India), which showed him wearing some splendid looking earrings, just like most Indian farmers traditionally wore. I thought to myself, "It's going to be funny to see my parents use the "boys from good families don't wear earrings" line against granddad!"

The discussion continued for a few days and eventually my parents capitulated, under the weight of increasingly convincing arguments from myself. My masi had a part to play in this too. She was visiting our home at that time, and said that it was no big deal if I wanted to get earrings done, especially considering that the traditional Hindu ceremonies associated with birth and childhood included an ear piercing ceremony and was believed to carry health benefits.

Over the years I've heard anti male-earrings tirades from many Hindu families. The general argument is that it looks 'ruff', the kind of thing that 'rude-boys' wear. Fortunately, most parents grudgingly let their children make their own choices in such matters.

I'm not trying to say that because our male ancestors wore earrings we all should. What I want to ask is where has our fickle, somewhat close-minded attitude to an individual's style come from? What sanction do these notions of 'respectability' have? They certainly are not sanctioned within our cultural and religious traditions. There have been since ancient times the most amazing variety of dress and style in Hindu society. And that is the way it should be. It is time to shed these colonial notions of what constitutes 'respectability'.

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