Finally, men are becoming untied! The male revolution has arrived ;)

A few days ago, I was at the airport to pick up my blog-debate-partner, who was on a work trip to the US. Unlike me goofing around throughout my life, he has been of of those corporate guys, ever since he picked up that prized MBA from India's premier management school--then, and perhaps even now.

As I was waiting, I made sure to watch out for a corporate suit to walk down. Perhaps even a three-piece suit, given his Anglophile sentiments.  What a surprise--no suit. Not even a blazer. And no garment bag in which he could have stashed a suit or two.

So, of course, I had to ask him about that even as we were waiting for his bag.  "It is not required anymore as it once was" was his response.

Finally, even the corporate world has gained some sense!

Not that I ever cared about the suit. For the longest time, it puzzled my father that I had a professional life in the US and I didn't own a suit. I am sure there were days my father wondered what exactly I did, but so does my neighbor even now!  In fact, I have always been ultra-suspicious of those fanatically attached to the suit as much as I have been uber-suspicious of those who are hell bent on radical-chic outfits.  Such attachments are more often than not symbols of inflexible thinking and action, which is no different from the military uniform governing the lives of another group.

Thus, all the more a pleasure it was to read in the ultimate corporate newspaper--the Wall Street Journal--that the tie is dead.

High time, I tell ya.  I have often joked that the tie is nothing but a woman's revenge on men.  Back then, the cavemen dragged their women by their hair, and the women kept plotting on how to make men pay for it.  The tie, of course.  Choke the man with it. Drag him to the darkest corners of hell with that piece of rope around his neck ;)

All right, exaggerations aside, what is the WSJ angle?

Much credit for neutralizing the tie's once-monolithic power goes to the tech industry—both the recent wave of entrepreneurs and the one that preceded it. The corporate lawyers and Goldman Sachs bankers who write their contracts and secure their financing might still wear ties, but many giants of the 3.0 business world are partial to hoodies. In Spike Jonze's new sci-fi film, "Her," set in the digital culture of the not-too-distant future, the only man wearing a tie is a lawyer.

That's right. Lawyers are sleazy and, of course, only they would wear ties.  Muahahaha!

And, whether history applauds or tears to shreds Obama's presidency, he will have contributed a lot to this going tie-less trend:

"Obama Wears His Suit Without a Tie. Can You?" was a question posed by Esquire magazine in the early months of his first term. In 2011, the president confronted Bill O'Reilly wearing an open collar when they sat down for a pre-Super Bowl interview. He even convinced Chinese President Xi Jinping to go tieless when they met this summer. While Mr. Obama is photographed wearing a necktie more often than not, for a certain brand of conservative (sartorial, not political), he can be seen as a destroyer of decorum. When the leader of the free world eschews tradition and establishes a new neckwear standard, one has to ask: Is the tie dead?

It is like how JFK is credited with killing that male accessory of the older years--the hat.  Prior to JFK, presidents, and men, wore hats.  And then came JFK with his hair blowing in the wind.

Now, hats are when we go hiking!

In the old country, we students transformed a Thirukkural couplet into one about the neck tie, which I vaguely recall as:

டை கட்டி வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார் மற்றெல்லாம் கை கட்டி பின் செல்வர்

(those who wear ties and live will live well,
the rest will walk behind with arms folded in respect)

I am sure there are high school students in Tamil Nadu have already transformed a Thirukkural couplet in favor of tshirts and hoodies.

If the tie is dead, then what lame gifts will wives and children get for the fathers around the world?  What will happen to the Father's Day jokes that we have always had?  Shit, I didn't think of that when celebrating the death of the neck tie! ;)