What does the Homo Southasiaticus do to ward off the winter chill? He procures a length of cloth, ideally 6 inches by 166; places at neck so as to leave 106 inches on one side, rings said longer side twice around neck, then wraps around skull, tightens the remaining length around the mouth and face, and taking the two ends, ties them into a knot that looks like a gigantic growth attached to the right cheek.
This is how the Western muffler ('comforter' to the Bangali), demurely placed under the dinner jacket or tucked delicately into the cardigan in the Occident, is adapted to South Asian weather and life situations.
Like the muffler, an import and not a desi invention is the vest, or ganji or banyaan. King Parakrama Bahu of Lanka was never found in one, neither, at the other end of SAARC, was Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha. Neither Akbar nor Birbal wore the banyaan. And nowhere in Rajasthani miniatures, the rock-cuts of Ajanta, or in the archaeological digs around Hastinapur do we find any indication that our ancestors BBTM* used refined cottons close to the skin.
But now the banyaan has become de rigucur because flabby male stars of Bollywood, who also doubtless wear Y-fronts (I think that is the term) in the lower elevations, go around in them and remind us that "yeh under ka mamla hai" (trans: this is an inside job).