Clothing

India is such a beautiful and vibrant country. The people have an ancient and colorful culture which is, perhaps, most obviously displayed through clothing.
Traditional Indian clothing varies from greatly across the country but almost everywhere, you'll find people wearing vibrant colors. On the streets of Indore, the city where I live, one will always find a medley of both  the colorful "traditionals" and "westerns." On the most part, the grown and married women wear saris, kurtis, or salwar suits. From what I've seen, younger women and girls tend to lean towards wearing "westerns" but there are still many younger people who wear the traditional clothing as well. Jeans and t-shirts are very common, so is a combination of traditional and western, jeans with a short kurti on top. Most of my friends and host sisters have told me they much prefer westerns. One of my past host sister's looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted to buy lots of traditionals. When girls wear westerns they aren't like those that we wear at home, pants or skirts should be a respectable length (skirts usually go only a little above the knee at the shortest) and shirts usually don't show shoulders or too much chest. During festivals, you see many more girls in traditionals, especially when there is a major public event involved. The only time I've seen a girl wearing shorts is around the hose and even then, the shorts are fairly long by our standards.
For things like birthday parties, girls often dress up in "one pieces" (dresses) it doesn't seen so common for a casual dress to be worn during the day.
Most men and boys seem to wear westerns more than traditionals. It's certainly more common, on the street to see males in pants and t-shirts or button downs. I have seen many, many playboy t-shirts on young men too. Most of the men I've met who wear traditonals regularly are much older, in both of my host families the grandfathers wear traditionals on a regular basis. Again, during special events of major holidays, you'll see many more men wearing kurtis or other traditionals but the percentage is still lower than the women wearing them.
Clothing to school is a totally different story, forget lots of bright colors. All schools below college have uniforms. At my school, we have jeans and a white polo t-shirt for boys and girls can wear that or a denim top and white bottom salwar suit. Other schools vary, at some the boys have to wear slacks and button downs and ties. Girl's uniforms differ more, there are salwar suits, pleated skirts and blouses, pleated dresses and blouses, and sometimes for younger girls a sailor style dress. On the way to school in the morning, I try to memorize which school has which uniforms because once you know that, you can tell what school anyone goes to. Schools also have very specific rule like, girls have to have their hair up preferably in braids, no nail polish, no dangle earring, no jewelry etc.
Traditional clothing is my favorite. For the nine days festival, I got to wear and see some spectacular patterns and clothing! The jewelry isn't so bad either....
People ask me what traditional clothes in the US look like and I usually say that we don't have them. I guess I could describe native american clothing, or colonial clothing but that's not the same. I am almost jealous of these people who still wear the same style clothing that they have been wearing for hundreds of years. I wish we had a cultural heritage that old that was still so alive. Plus the clothing here is just gorgeous.

The pictures I'm adding are what I could find in way of examples for the clothing. Some of the pictures might be ones I've used before, there are also probably good examples of traditional wear in other posts too.

At the garba on the night of Sebastian's birthday. Jordan (left) is wearing his kurti with jeans. I'm wearing a sari. Sebastian is wearing his "kurti pajamas," a traditional way for men to wear kurtis (the exchange student boys have a hard time getting used to wearing the close fitting pants). Hannah (right) is wearing lehenga.

Very often, women wear traditional clothing out while men tend to wear western clothes.

This night I was wearing lehenga and the others in this picture are all wearing saris.

One of my kurtis. A kurti is usually worn with leggings or jeans and a scarf called a "stole" or "dupatta."

This night I was wearing a salwar suit which is a kurti top with loose baggy pants and a scarf. The salwars are probably the most comfortable pants I have ever worn!

Sebastian's birthday. My host sister was wearing a sari. A sari has three parts: a blouse which can be long or short and the sleeve sizes vary, a plane colored petty-coat skirt on the bottom, and then a very big piece of cloth that is wrapped around and tuck into the skirt and the draped of the shoulder. A lehenga also has three parts: a blouse the same as with a sari, a long skirt that is patterned and usually matches the blouse, and a piece of fabric smaller than with a sari that is tucked in a little to the skirt draped of the opposite side shoulder and then pinned in front. In the first picture, you can see how Hannah's lehenga is set up.

We are each wearing a different style of traditional dress.

The baggy pants of a salwar suit are VERY comfortable!

An example of a school uniform, this was a school in Bhopal.

Another traditional outfit for men here modeled by this little boy.