Put on Your Visa Dress

We got the visa, we did, and all the hoopla was completely unfounded. I wonder what all this bureaucratic nonsense is about because in the end all Tejas needed was his sparkly face and pressed shirt.

We left to Chennai at five o’clock in the morning; the sun had not yet broken above the horizon. Tejas woke up at three thirty to begin getting himself ready for the interview. He had a bath, prayed, put on a t-shirt so his formal shirt wouldn’t get wrinkled on the train, and then packed a third shirt—in case he was to spill coffee on one of them. He polished his shoes, shaved his face, said goodbye to his parents and headed out. We reached the train station looking jumbled. I was dressed in a shabby salwar kameez with grey pashmina wrap. My morning routine was severely less complicated. I packed a bag with a sweatshirt, snacks and water for the train, and my notebook to do some school work. I threw on my outfit, tied my hair in a knot, added a bindi, coal, perfume, and done. I was dressed to sit in a Chennai coffee shop for the day. He was dressed to impress.

Tejas tells me about his business education. “In MBA we are taught ‘power dressing’, because when you walk into a place and you know you’re the best dressed there, it boosts your confidence over fifty percent. It’s called power dressing because you feel powerful in those clothes,” he says. I suppose Tejas was power dressing for the occasion—looking prepared to feel prepared—and I'm glad he did.

After reaching Chennai we used the rest room in a nearby mall to freshen up. Tejas washed his face, combed his hair, and sprayed on a fresh layer of fragrant deodorant. The he left for the interview. I waited in the coffee shop. I couldn’t get a lick of work done all afternoon; I was too nervous—too excited. I watched the people walk in and out of the mall’s from doors below all after noon. Every man in black pants and long white sleeves caught my eye, but none of them were as slick looking as Tejas was. Nobody’s shirt was a shimmery, no one’s pants as deep a black. When he finally returned, I was to down the stairs and to the front doors before he was.

“How did it go,” I almost squealed.

“I’m going to need your help,” he said, sweating a bit in the heat.

“Okay. Why? What happened?”

“Well—he paused dramatically—we have a trip to plan!” A flood of joy and relief spread over every inch of my body; every hair follicle clenched into a goose bumps.

“GOOD!!!” After so much work, I was ecstatic to feel rewarded for our efforts. All the preparation, though, may have been in vain. It probably wasn’t but it felt that way. In the interview, Tejas told me, they didn’t even look at his papers. They took only two sheets of nearly a ream of documents as evidence of Tejas’ merit and entitlement to a US visa. We couldn’t help but assume that Tejas’ appearance had something to do with his luck. He admitted, he did feel like the best dressed in the room.

In the train on the ride home that night, we chat about how Tejas’ awesome good looks got him entry into the USA. We conclude that when you meet someone for the first time, whether they intend to or not, their first impression of you is indubitably based on your appearance. It’s the way you’re dressed, the way you move, the expression on your face, and your physical appearance that people notice first. I guess the way you look, the way you present yourself can take you over barriers.

I can take this idea into the field of intercultural communication quite easily. Every time I dress in a conservative salwar kameez before I enter a village to conduct interviews, I confirm my own belief that one’s impression of my looks with play a key role in that persons interpretation of me, and as a result, our subsequent interactions. Like my dressing in traditional Indian clothes to do my field research, Tejas’ dressing in formal western clothes for his visa interview at the US embassy has an effect on how he is received. In this way presentation is a tool in intercultural communication.

It is shown again in advertising. Both print advertising and television commercials are culturally sensitive. The book My Cheese is Dead discusses how advertisements used to sell cheese to the French are useless when trying to sell to the United States. That is because of a critical difference in cultural associations with cheese: in France cheese is a live and growing entity, whereas in the US cheese is “dead,” sterile, kept in the “coffin like” refrigerator. The way cheese is presented to the public in a commercial greatly affects ones feelings toward it. Similarly, one’s adjusting their appearance to cultural norms changes others’ receptivity toward them. In the cross cultural context, I realized today that appearance is of upmost importance: it not only affects the way one feels about himself, but the way he is received by others—others, who in today’s case, were very important.