It was wedding season in our family. For the last 3 years, each of my cousins had folded like dominos under their parent's pressure and had finally decided to take a stroll down the path of holy matrimony. And attending these weddings for the past three years had given me a saree fever. My mother hated sarees and never wore any, so growing up, I never had much interest in them either. But all that changed the day I attended my brother's wedding and noticed how beautiful everyone looked in a traditional silk saree. I realized that sarees looked elegant, were universally flattering, hid my tummy, were suitable for all occasions and also pretty cheap. There was just something about an indigo chanderi Saree paired with chunky oxidized jewelry that just spoke to me. The only obstacle I could see, preventing me from getting on the saree train was the fact that I had no idea how to drape one.
My mother being an ever-helpful women, just threw one of her old saree at me and asked me to be the Genz that I was and learn how to drape a saree from the internet. So, I went forth on the battlefield searching videos after video's (and there were a hell lot!) on how to perfectly drape on a saree. I spent a whole day watching videos that had racked up millions of views of women giving tips and tricks on how to wear a saree and came to the realization that every Indian woman at some or the other point in her life had probably encountered the same question on how to drape this huge swath of a fabric and searched for the same on YouTube. Watching those videos however, made me an overconfident bitch who overestimated her abilities. I mean I was studying CA, one of the hardest courses in the country, I could easily wear a saree in minutes, it was hardly rocket science. After all, millions of Indians wore it every day, so did all my ancestors probably. Wearing a saree was in my blood, in my fate, it was my destiny. Boy how wrong I was.
The one thing people never tell you about wearing a saree is how hot it gets. You can't put on a fan because you don't want your saree to fly away and A.C was out of question, so by the time you finish wearing a saree, you are also sweating onto your saree like a pig in the sewer. Finding the pallu of the saree requires as much concentration as a scientist observing an amoeba. The number of times I pricked myself while securing the saree with the safety pin, uncountable. Not to mention just handling the sheer amount of fabric, it just goes on and on, confusing me with where it starts, where it ends and what I'm supposed to drape. The only win was that all the tripping and flailing and spinning in circles I did with the fabric strewn all over the room has at least made me more flexible. There is also apparently the top and bottom part of the saree which we are supposed to know from the falls stitched on to them. All this through, I could handle, it was annoying for sure but still within the realm of possibility. The part I hated through was pleating the pallu of the saree.
I had till then never thought much about the size of my hands and the dexterity and strength of my fingers. However now that I have, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that my fingers are very bad in performing the duties they had evolved to do and are very severely in need of strength training to breach the well-fortified high wall of equal saree pleats. There have been times where I felt like I had done about 100 curl ups with a 1kg dumbbell by the time I pleated the pallu of the saree. Every time I think that's it; I've mastered the art of symmetrical pleats, a random fold peeks out from the bunch to say hi, making me scream murder.
But even with all that, I still think it's a worthwhile endeavor to learn to wear a saree. I've always thought sarees were one monolith block, but over the past few days I've learnt that there are hundreds of different kinds of sarees, sarees that are a specialty in each states and the rich traditional history associated with them. Also, I feel wearing a saree marks the official end of my youth and start of my adulthood. So, cheers to a future 40-year-old me with my 2 cupboards full of my saree collection.
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