Playing Dress Up

Last night on campus, there was a cultural night organized by the students to celebrate the Rajo festival. The flyer for the event described a night of entertainment with songs, dance, and henna/tattoo/hair competitions. The only catch was that you had to come in traditional dress, which for girls meant saris.

Now in India most women in their twenties who are studying in school or are working at casual offices are not likely to be wearing saris day to day. More often than not they'll be wearing a kurta (longish loose-fitting tunic-like top) with a salwar (breezy draw string pants), a churidar (a tighter pant that is tapered but has scrunched up rings of material at the bottom), or a patiala (think MC Hammer pants made of natural fibers). Among the younger generation, saris are generally reserved for weddings, festivals and other special occasions.

My coworkers and I didn't have saris so we went shopping for them on Monday. It was a dizzying experience that involved going from store after store to choose from an assortment of fabrics the perfect material, color and design. Then we had to go to other shops to find matching petticoats and blouses (usually women will get these specially made but we were short on time). By the end of the night we made our choices: Lisa was to be in dark purple, Saryu in light purple, me in green. Deepika decided to wear a fancy churidar kameez she had packed.

Apparently, there are more than one hundred ways to drape a sari. Between the four of us, we didn't even know one. So we had no choice but to ask for help from the only person we knew who could do it: the warden. We told the security guard that we were looking for her and asked that she come to our room as soon as possible. She arrived at our door within five minutes only to find me standing in the middle of the room in a blouse and petticoat hopelessly holding onto an endless piece of green fabric.

She gave the signal for five minutes and went rushing off. She came back later with another member of the staff who we had never met before. As we would later find out, she was an expert with saris.

So first she checked that the petticoat was pulled and tied tightly around my waist. This is important because if the petticoat comes undone the whole sari falls off. Then she wrapped the fabric around my waist tucking it into my petticoat. Then she tossed one end of the fabric over my shoulder and pinned it into place. The most impressive part came next, as she neatly folded pleats in the front and then tucked the rest of the fabric into the petticoat. The whole process took about 15 minutes.
It was actually kind of a bonding moment, too. The warden sat there with all of us and we actually laughed and had fun. It just might have been a turning point.