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.
