Watching an old movie with someone pretty unknown can be fun. At least you get to know what they think. Fast-forward to the dance sequence where the heroine dances around tress in saris and the hero wears a shirt and trousers. And my sincere Christian friend commented that compared to all western and other Indian dresses the sari is the best. I asked him back “Why?” He told he didn’t exactly know the cause but even in college guys like it when gals come in saris, etc. I retorted back “Try wearing 6 yards of cloth then you will know. No guy these days wear dhoti (which is Tamil dress); then why must gals alone wear saris because guys like it!”
I too feel saris look good on Tamil gals, I am not writing this blog entry against saris. I am writing this because it is clear that women have been forced to carry culture. For the culture to survive it has got to maintain its women within the set dress code.
You can hardly notice any guy in dothi today. Only politicians and rural Indians wear it. Even in case of functions our women are paraded in saris with matching jewellery, only men conveniently come in coat and suit. Women don’t come in evening gowns or ballroom dresses. Remember that!
Why should women carry on culture, when men can easily forget it, and ape the western culture! It is not that I want women to also ape. When men want women to preserve culture, they must use the same yardstick for themselves also.
While the dress code in Anna University conveniently kicks out half saris, everybody keeps silent. Then all of a sudden how can people expect gals to wear saris, when they hardly have any experience with the half-sari. I still remember what a struggle I had to put to get one half sari.
The matter is that a girl must wear a dress in which she is comfortable. If she is comfortable in a sari, then its fine. Being a girl, I know how uncomfortable it was the first time I wore it. The cold breeze against the stomach, the overall feeling of being watched…The importance your already too thin belly gets. All of a sudden the eyes get fixed on the hip to see if the gal has tied the sari ‘low hip’ or not. As if it is enough to give us a character certificate. I have heard very loud comments that only prostitutes wear low-hip, so that we gals don’t attempt at wearing them.
Any effort to make sari fashionable is not welcomed. Even the recent sari with pocket got the accusation that it was aimed to make women tie the sari in what is called the ‘low hip’ fashion. If we need to wear low hip, we will need at least 15 pins to make it stand properly at its place, which will make it all the more uncomfortable. Those are possible only in ads and movies.
Next time you see a girl in sari be content that she is wearing sari, don’t bother whether it is tied low hip or not.
We may talk much against the purdah system, but we ourselves are not good when we force women into 6 yard dresses, and say that “sari is the most sexy dress” and so on. They are just hollow words that cover our hypocrisy.
Superb article
Article: http://unmaionline.com/20070301/23.htm
pls download font from:
http://unmaionline.com/tamilfonts.htm
read last article in this link
http://unmaionline.com/2005091/2005091u2.html
It is indeed a very good post. All that you have written in so very true.
Yeah.. we need not ape men by wearing modern dress, but we can atleast wear what we feel comfortable in. Tradition should be protected, but by all members of the society, not by just the womenfolk. Comfort and tradition should be in equal balance.
Another disturbing trend is wearing uncomfortably tight dresses in the name of trend and fashion. It is equally foolish! Hope we and our society uses more brain and common sense when it comes to attire.
I very much appreciate your anguish; after all we all have our own pain in the ass. I here, try hard to work up my grey cells to come up with a descent explanation that might help you find something between ideal and radical on your yard stick.
As far as I know, guys (most) are capable of looking through anything on a woman’s body. I hope you can understand and appreciate that. No matter what you cry out loud, it’s the way the guys are. May be for a day or two after reading this post of yours, some might not be the same guys. If he is from this confusingly mature society, change is gonna be hard if it ain’t from his heart. So, if you are thinking to wear something to save your self from them, it’s just a waste of time.
Coming to girls, I believe most cram out for attention (most, not all). They wear what ever that convinces them that they look good in and they tend to convince their definition of ‘comfort’ based on many extraneous terms too. It needs no justification that many volunteer and enjoy wearing sari’s matched with the expensive pieces of rock and metal on special occasions (may be coz they like it or may be to impress elders or may be to tease some one particular). And the few who complain also enjoy their liberty to do so for the same or slightly different reasons. It might not be only the guys, the girls who like wearing them might also justify their spending so much for a night’s dress by pointing to the tradition and culture that they should carry on. Then come the other type who like themselves calling trendy, they wear so called what ever they are comfortable in, may be a salwar, skirt (long/short), bikini, jean n a tee…….what ever they term comfortable. To justify their action, they blame either the old tradition or culture.
I wonder n pity how much batter these two ‘poor’ words have taken all these years on for our own personal reasons. When you find some thing disturbing, you blame these two words first and them comes the opposite gender.
Ok, get to my point, I am not the one who thinks women are inferior nor superior (you know my mom n me). But I believe there are strengths and weaknesses that attribute to each gender. If you consider defying me by building a body like a guy or by becoming a CEO or a pilot, I would be left no option except imagining you a stupid. I should accept that a man can replicate a woman neither physically nor mentally. That makes a man, neither superior nor inferior to a woman. Men have this aggression which found its way into their DNA through the series of evolution (as it was necessary to sustain the competition to live as well as to mate); while you have patience and resilience in yours (coz, it was needed to soothe down that wild beast evoked inside the men). The same process of evolution had put in an extra ingredient called ‘physical attraction’ a bit more in the men as they tend to get outta control when outraged and it desperately calls for a measure to control that. And may be by the next thousand years this might not be true as we the ever evolving creatures may tend to rationalize this difference over time.
But this day, I believe that this difference is the sole reason for the men to enjoy commanding women and the women happy to an extent obeying them. If at all some one is to blame, it should be ‘both’. One for not recognizing the right place to exercise their aggression and the other for not helping them realize that.
Couple of points to fancy the sari, I kinda feel that this plain cloth of about six yards can be worn around in a variety of fashions (u can search the wiki for details on sari). This piece of cloth, when chosen from a comfortable material, might let you enjoy a range of choices (while almost all the other dresses can be worn in utmost one way). You can expose what ever you want to and you can hide if you wish to. They might be easily adjusted in a variety of ways to highlight or show the best of your assets if you want to, when you want to, to whom you want to. If you complain it’s uncomfortable it might be your opinion (either generated or heart-felt) which I might have to appreciate coz I have my opinion supporting my love to wear minimum.
I neither support the argument that girls should dress in a sari to respect the customs or traditions nor I support the women who are against it. No matter what I say, I think that they comfortably find a fitting reason to support what they like to wear (may that be a sari or some thing else) depending on their personal experiences in life. I neither blame the two poor words nor any of the genders. The blame is everywhere spread even.
Hurting others is no fun to me, but making my point to learn personally from my mistakes and to help learn is fun to me. Healthy criticism is appreciated, while foul criticism would be thoroughly enjoyed.
A nice article.. My request to you is don’t genrealise things. I know that a majority of the guys are what you say. But there are men who are sensible enough. I believe its the brought up and the cultural taboo which are imparted in to the minds when the peopl are young are the only reasons for the cultural imbalance which the women face…
hats off to your thought process…
Sylvian Patrick
Hi All,
I was reading through the blog on Sari’s wow what kind of a human being can think of such wierd things of hips when girls are rolled up in Sari’s…..and how uncomfortable it can be…………wow my mom wears it every day and looks really beautiful in her cotton and kanjeevaram saree’s.
I personally think that this can be dress code which can be considered very much professional and formal, which is why some airline still vouch for this dress code, how comfortable are women in Jeans, its body hugging that I have seems girls who could hardly walk with the 3 inch heels……….not sure where the author got it when he/she said its the chilly breeze strikes a cold blow on her tummy, wow Chennai and cool breeze I would be glad to relocate if global warming is makin any kinda climatic changes in this city.
my sister wers sari just by herself. no one forces her to wer a pariticular dress. i do agree that saree could be an uncomfortable dress for anyone. i can see some making excuses that sari is uncomfortable and changing into legless pants and sleeve less tops. low waist.. blablbalbala.. and turning into somekinda erotic dress. thats just uncomfortable for anyone.
Its a matter of comfort….and question of practice, even putting on a formal dress is so uncomfortable after waering jeans and t-shirts for long….