What would you say terrifies you the most?A spider,crawling towards you creepily with its deceptively sleepy eyes.Or,a snarling lion which has missed its morning snack.Maybe you live in constant fear that your bedroom ceiling fan might fall on your head any minute.I too have my own set of rational and irrational fears.Public speaking and drowning share the top honors,there is another seemingly commonplace entity which makes my sympathetic nervous system spring into action.
The sari.
Don't get me wrong.I absolutely love the pretty yards of fabric swaying away in the wind,I am enthralled by the intricate patterns and painstaking designs made on them by countless workers toiling away night and day and the multitude of color combinations gladdens my heart.Its only when that contraption is to be worn that my bravado starts fading and degenerating like the ozone layer.
Wearing of the sari starts off with a very loud,very comprehensive and heated discussion on which color and type it should be.The occasion for which it is being considered to be worn is next balanced on another area of the reasoning section of the brain.After you live through this,you begin hunting for a blouse to suit the sari exactly.Its imperative for you to have maintained your original figure as when the blouse was given for stitching.If,for some reason,you have bloated or shrunk in the intermediate period,your case is lost.If you have shrunk,the situation is not so bad but if the alternative is true,you might end up wheezing and gasping for breath.
Now,the actual business of putting the troublesome sari begins.You silently submit to the various operations performed on your body,you squirm and wiggle about till it is wrapped around you.You plead to have the sari secured with at least a hundred pins and yet worry all the time about the likelihood of its unraveling.Finally.The deed is done.While others sit back and pat themselves on their backs for having accomplished the task,you pray to all the Gods you know to let the sari stay where it is supposed to stay.
At last,at long last,its time to change back into your normal attire.With lightening speed,you pull off all the embellishments,you gleefully remove the never ending sari and oh,how many pins are sticking in you?After you say your prayers and are just about to hit the sack,you gingerly review your tryst with the sari.An hour's work of dressing up for a twenty minute photoshoot and ten minute discard process.You look at the elegant sari with a mixture of simple joy at having heroically worn it and kept it glued to your body for the entire length of the evening and relief that nothing untoward happened.
Sari sir,I'm not going to wear a sari.
In Chinky's words- I KNOW!!!
ReplyDeleteTruer words were never written. I've worn saris exactly twice(no, I'm not counting our Mudra disasters :P)till now,and I can't say which one was a bigger fiasco.
On teacher's day in twelfth I convinced my mum that I am fully capable of draping a sari and she need not help.Soon after, I accidently stepped on the material while climbing the school stairs and..it sort of undraped!! :o
Thank heavens I was before time for once. I shudder to think what might've happened otherwise :P
The second time I wore it on the sari day in college. And this time I pinned it heavily, even carried a bunch of extra safety pins. It looked good, I thought. The freedom of movement was unbelievable. I strutted in, smiling to myself that nothing could possibly go wrong this time, only to find out that it was not the sari after all!!
Haha...I remember when all of us gals decided to do an improptu Mahi Ve on Teacher's Day when we were in the 12th.In all the pics of the dance,I can be seen looking down with fervour,to ensure that my sari is not on the stage floor.
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