Suiting up...in saris

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It only took two shopping trips, a trip to a back-alley tailor, and a couple hours of chaos but we finally got to wear our saris! It took the three of us (Sam, Fae and myself) a long time to get ready because we didn't know how to put on saris at all, of course, and Sumedha did not have much practice at getting them to look just right. I got to put on my sari first, and even though it took awhile we were able to get my sari fully assembled with just Sumedha's and Naveet's help. When we tried to get Fae and Sam set up, though, they couldn't quite get the whole thing arranged. Their saris were two-toned, which made it a bit harder to get it to look right, and the girls are shorter than I am so they had to tuck a lot of fabric into the petticoat. Faced with such complications, what did we do? Call up one of the ladies who worked down in reception! Since they wear saris every day we hoped that they could finish up Sam and Fae properly and, sure enough, in no time at all they had been transformed into Indian princesses!

So, a bit of description on the whole sari outfit. There are three parts to a sari: the petticoat, the blouse, and the sari itself. The petticoat is just a simple underskirt that has a string to tie near the waist and falls all the way to the ground. It is suposed to match the color of the sari exactly, but mine was a bit darker than my sari and seemed to work just fine. The sari usually has some sort of border on the edge, say a thick ribbon, to edge it off. When you buy a sari it will often come with a strip of fabric to make a blouse, which you then take to a tailor. The sleeves of the blouse have the same edging as the sari, which makes the whole outfit look really shmancy. The style of the blouse is basically a t-shirt that ends a couple inches below your breasts, and features either hooks in front or a zipper under the arm, and loops in the shoulders that snap around your bra strap to keep it properly in the blouse.

The sari assemblage starts with putting on the petticoat and the blouse. Then one edge of the sari is tucked into the petticoat over the right hip and wraps around the waist (towards the left hip first) to get one layer of the sari as a skirt. Then a length of the sari is accordion-folded to give a bustle of fabric that sits in the front. All of these bits are tucked into the petticoat, which is how the whole thing stays together. We also used a safety pin to keep the folds together. Once the bustle is tucked into the front of the sari, the length of fabric that is left over is taken up and over the left shoulder. You can chose whether to pin the whole bit of fabric up on your shoulder, leaving your shoulder bare and exposing a bit of midriff on your side, or you can just pin one edge on the shoulder and leave the rest of the fabric to drap over your arm and shoulder. Some women take the extra length and wrap it so it tucks back into the sari, which seems a practical way to wear it because then you won't have the extra fabric flowing around and getting in the way when you try to sit.

Just like any elaborate outfit, learning to move in a sari took a bit of work. Walking was relatively easy to pick up, since the skirts fall just above your toes. I did have a bit of trouble when walking uphill since your chances of stepping on the hem are greatly increased. And, of course, stepping on the hem basically guaranteed that you'd pull the sari out of the petticoat and would have to go to the washroom to rearranged yourself. Walking up steps or getting on the bus was excessively nerve-wracking because you need to grab your skirts and lift them to get up the step, and you can't lift your skirts too high or you look indelicate. Not only that, you have to be sure to grab ALL of the bustle and the petticoat, or you'll step on the sari and pull it out. I did pretty well in general, never stepping on the hem really badly. At one point in the evening I noticed my sari was falling out and I had to go fix it, but that seemed to be from normal motions of standing, sitting, walking, etc.

We were quite the sensation. I am used to standing out, I mean, you don't see many 6' tall blond girls dressed in guy shorts and tanks very much in India, so I got used to people looking at me. This was nothing like that. As soon as the three of us reached the lobby of the hotel everyone looked at us, and I could feel it was a different look. When you're foreign, people might look at you and see your foreign clothes, but it's not an excessively interested look. These were interested looks. There are a group of Indian guys staying in our hotel for some medical conference and we had the attention of every single one. Our auto driver complemented me (through Naveet) saying that many foreigners dressed in jeans and t-shirts and it was nice to see one in traditional Indian clothing. He then looked at me in the rearview mirror, smiled and said "very nice." In fact, we got that reaction from a lot of the Indian men in service positions, like waiters and such like. Always a "very nice" and a smile. I smiled back and said thanks every time. Luckily for me I have no problem being the center of attention, but Sam was really shy at the beginning and even hid from pictures! She got better, though. :D

As it was, the evening didn't end with the banquet. Some kids from the k-mob (Korea) brought some liquor from Korea, called soju, so after ditching the sari (which was not good for lounging) I hung out with them and kids from the i-co and j-crew in the hotel room next door. I can't really describe the taste of soju, since I only had a little. Mostly I was drinking Kingfisher beer that we swiped from the minibar and will replace...eventually. That's one nice thing about the general disorganization of India--it's easy to do things like drink from the minibar and replace with stuff you buy at the market later. ;D Once the group in Yuki's room had winded down, a core group of us relocated to a different room to continue hanging and chatting. I got to ask Hussain about Islam, and he talked about the Koran and Ramazan and the comparisons between Christianity and Islam. They're about 1/3 of the way through Ramazan right now, which means that Hussain can't eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, which is still mind-boggling to me. My friend Sabreen had done Ramazan (though she called it by its arabic name Ramadan) back in undergrad and I was impressed then. We were up really late just talking and exchanging stories, and I think that it's been one of my favorite experiences so far.

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