I do not know of any Indian woman who cannot tell you a sari story, or 10. Wedding.
Across Generations, Regions, Religions, and Socio-Economic Status, This Unstitched Garment has Endured for 5,000 years for 5,000 years through handloom and Polyeser, hand-musbroidered to mass producked, nine-odes to prevure Paddy field to met gala. In a country where we spendk in many tongues and the impression of one can be fractured, the single unifying dress of Indian women is the Sari.
My first was a navy blue with what was then a fashionable polka dot blouse. I was being uprooted from a Fairly Anglicized Education in Mumbai to study in the far more Nationalist-Leaning Boarding School Founded by Gayatri Devi to educate a generation of independent Among the list of cloths to be packed in my trunk was a sari to be Worn by students over the age of 13 on formal obscations. And so, the practical ‘drip-dry’ came along with me. And although my stint at the school lasted for only a year, my love for the sari continues.
The title of Malvika Singh’s Saris of Memory: Fragments of My LifeImmediately resonated. For there of us who wear saris On Occasion, Each One Tells a Story. And through the saris she has acqured over five decades, singh tells hers with aplomb.
The book is an important repository or, to use singh’s word, bhandaarThat tells the story of India and the non-stop love affair of its women with the sariThere are regional variations from the tie -nd-dye of kutch to the gara Embroideries of the Mumbai Parsis with styles of Tying from the Maharashtrian Nine-Year Hitched Between The Legs for Freer Mobility to the Households Clanging from the Ends of a Bengali tangail,
While the sari has made it debut in the museums of the world – London’s design museum featured 90 in 2023, Including a copy of tarun tahiliani’s foil jerseyy sari-Gown for Lady Gaga -Few in Urban India Wear the Sari as an everyday garment. For one there’s the question of expenses; A Sari requires a blouse, petticoat, the stitching of a fall.
And, YET It Endures. Partly IT is, as Singh reminds us, become of the women – and men – who have nurtured, traveled, catalogged, reproduced, patronized and,,,,, Most Important, Reinvented It. From Pupul Jayakar to Martand Singh, from Laila Tyabji to Rakesh Thakore.
But partly, it’s also if the sari is constant reinventing its relevant, from the college student who pairs it with sneakers to the badlands of bundelkhand where memebers of the gulabi gala Armed with laathis Dispense gender justice dressed in Rani Pink Saris. “Our greenst strength is when we are united,” Gang Founder Sampat Devi Pal Told The Financial Times in 2011.
Namita Bhandare Writes on Gender.The views expressed are personal
