The Whole 5 Yards

It takes 3 minutes to tie a sari almost perfectly. Subsequent attempts at ensuring complete perfection can take upto an additional 57. My solution to the problem, like my solution to most problems, is to dilly-dally till the absolute last moment. To finally get down to the complicated process of drapery when you have little or no time to be fussy about the outcome. Somehow, not having the luxury to redo things makes you do them well the first time over. Either that or you just have to grudgingly be satisfied with the effort.

But a sari is almost as trying to keep on that it is to put on. There is the painful question of what to do with the pallu. Sure at first you feel all grand and princess like when you flap it around, like those deliriously happy women in the sari commercials. I always feel a bit like a super hero myself, with my one shouldered cape. But the charm wears thin faster than you can say… oh well… just about anything that doesn’t take too long to say. From then on in it’s quite the nightmare. Conventional wisdom (i.e. passed down from generations of mothers) says the left arm (on which the palla rests) must never budge from the strict angle of 45 at the elbow. Not even if your arm muscles spasm or threaten to give way or just get bored of assuming the same position for hours on end. The said piece of cloth must be pinned firmly (but delicately so as not to rip the fabric) to the left shoulder and let loose, extending over the arm reaching the left wrist.

And then there is the prospect of having to navigate your way through a cruel world, which insists on installing obstacles in your way. Tip toeing through puddles which will magically materialise or manoeuvring around mounds of rubble. Stairs, by far the most worthy of adversaries must be scaled repeatedly. I don’t know what the rest do. I just bunch up the pleats and march on steadfastly giving the whole world a fairly generous peak at the frills at the bottom of the petticoat. All this must be done gracefully.

And all this must be done on high heels. Because flats are out of the question: its an unwritten rule. Even if it means that 20 minutes into having worn them, the entire weight of your body rests precariously on your toes. Even if the pain renders you dangerously close to passing out.

So lets recap… you have this impossibly tight string around your tummy cutting of the blood supply to everything south of the waist (or waste lands as Akka would endearingly refer to our bellies as). You have about a dozen overlapping pleats, which must be planted right in the middle of your gut. The gut of course has to be sucked in tight unless you want to look like you’re well into your second trimester. There’s the palla that must be tamed and the sandals that must be worn and borne. The brassiere strap that must be prevented from making an embarrassing appearance. The pebbles that creep in between your toes and move further on cruelly piercing your sole. And if you choose to leave your hair open you’re in for one hell of a picnic. For there is only so much nipping and tucking that the free and mobile right hand can do. Meals are impossible. I for one have never been able to master the art of one- handed eating, this despite years of attending weddings without adequate seating arrangements. No matter how scrumptious the meal, the sari clad me would just prefer to go hungry.
So breath held, arm aching, toes screaming for reprieve. Oh yes, and don’t forget to smile!

*

Ok the griping notwithstanding the end product of all this misery is actually quite beautiful. I’ve never known a woman to look anything less than her aesthetically pleasing best in a sari. There is something so incredibly feminine about the experience that almost makes the unpleasantness recede into the background.

*

There is something marvellous about living in a girls’ hostel. I could just stand in the courtyard and yell, “Help!!” and help would in fact appear. Sarees materialise from thin air, sandals will drop from the heavens, bangles and all nature of jewellery and accessories will be instantaneously matched, some generous souls would even offer the services of their ironing skills. The whole world turns out to take a peak and almost unfailingly tell you that you look more gorgeous than you ever have. And you believe it because somehow, they always mean it.

Everyone is captivated by your beauty and the whole process of your metamorphosis. There is no envy or malice. Just a feeling of awe at having been in some small way a part of the creation of unparalleled loveliness.

*

All the recent farewell-ing that I’ve been through is not without ugly side effects. There is the realisation that youth is steadily slipping through your fingers. That you can’t really post pone growing up any more.

I feel like such a geriatric… bleh…