Turbans

During our recent trip to India, I became fascinated with turbans.  There were many beautiful turbans, in a variety of colours, and wrapped in rather exotic patterns.  One man demonstrated to me how he wrapped his turban - he did it so efficiently it was amazing.

These turbans aren't simply decorative though.  The colours of the turban indicate who you are; for example in one region shepherds wore an orange turban, in another area yellow.  Although we were assured many times that the caste system is dead in India, most of our guides self-identified the caste they were from, and often identified others that way.  So it still seemed fairly top of mind to me.

I've appended some photos of turbans I particularly liked.  You'll notice that most of the men wearing these turbans are older, so perhaps the practice is melting away with the younger generation. The exception is where I was taking pictures of hotel employees wearing local dress; they were much easier to pose so there are a few of those