Significance? It was one of the ways the
Citizens showed their elite status
Meera Singh stepped into the communications booth. She
pulled back the hood of her all-enveloping burnous and ran one slender finger
down the cling-me line that held it together at the front seam, before sliding
it off her shoulders and hanging it on the waiting hook. Underneath, she wore a
traditional shalwar kameez, in her
favourite colours of turquoise and peacock green, appliqued with sparkling gold
and ruby flowers. Today not even that could lift her mood.
The inhospitable climate of Shiva meant everyone,
Citizens, resident Terrans and visitors, had to wear an all-encompassing
burnous when out of doors. These were all white, as the best colour to deflect
the harsh sunlight. To compensate, the young Citizens wore brilliantly coloured
clothing indoors.
Inside the salt-white buildings, Terra-born
residents wore drab pastels or subdued prints and the young Citizens arrayed
themselves in an eye-watering variety of florals and dazzling borders.
Cornelia Conti, a Terran with grey hair and a
penchant for drab clothing, was especially affected by Meera’s choice.
How she must have looked to
that beautiful, vibrant, Shivan girl in her peacock and turquoise silks!
Meera’s taste in brilliant colours was partly
cultural (the Shivan Citizens were encouraged to array themselves in the best)
but may also have been inherited from her mother Diya, whose wedding saree was
a beautiful confection of gold and purple.
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