I remember back in the day when I first came to Kochi I was always amused by the clothes people wore there. Especially the Mallu (short for Malayali / Keralite) men! Formal wear to them was a starched plain shirt with a Mundu. Now I'll never forget the day when I guess I was 9-10yrs old, and my friends and I were having a game of soccer in the building compound. Halfway through our game, the building gates opened and in came a shiny new Mercedes S-Class. The driver sitting inside looked pretty business-like with a white shirt and a pair of sunglasses on. While normally we would just continue with our game, we all stopped to see who was coming in with such a fancy car. The car pulled up to the side, the door opened, and thats when I think I must have burst out laughing inside my head.... Out came the guy, with a crumpled mundu paired with over used bathroom slippers!! It was quite a hilarious sight.... We were probably expecting shiny leather shoes...but this turned out to be your usual average Joe!

Forward nearly 10 years later, I'm here in Perth, waiting for the bus on the way to work. Along comes a shiny red Mazda RX-8, and it stopped right next to the pizza place. And lo comes out the driver.....a shirtless guy, wearing just beach shorts...and barefoot!! At that point I just flashed back to the Merc incident in Kochi and counldn't help but laughing out. People around me must have thought I must have gone bonkers!! But I've noticed that over here, people are less bothered about their clothing than anywhere else I've been....you walk to the mall and there are people walking around barefoot all the time....not cuz they can't afford shoes, the flashy cell phones with them are a dead give away on that...but its just cuz they don't want to! Even at the store where I work, we constantly get people walking in shirtless....barefoot...or in their beach wear.....and no one really cares!! I'm usually staring at them thinkin 'wats their problem'....but it doesn't quite seem to bother anyone else. They even enter public toilets like that!!! And these people walk out of the store with nearly $100 in groceries....i'm sure they can afford some footware.

But I guess its just the way things are here....and i'll just have to get used to it like everything else...