A few months ago, Shashi Tharoor wrote an essay which contained a “casual observation” about how less and less women in India were wearing saris. Upon hearing about his thoughts, desi women all over the world gifted Shashi with a new orifice, via email, blog, essay, and voodoo doll. A few women, my curmudgeonly mother included, agreed with Tharoor’s lament; like him, they were saddened by the ascent of the Salwar Kameez.
[I do think that Malayalees who are my Mom’s/Shashi’s age are extra vexed by how the sartorial times, they are a-changin’, since they so strongly identify saris as part of the Mallu identity, but more on that later. Or not.]
Tharoor wrote a follow-up piece recently, which I discovered via the news tab. I’ve excerpted the yummier parts for your digestion.
On how graceful and pretty saris are:
For centuries, if not millennia, the alluring garment, all five or six or nine yards of it, has been the defining drape of Indian womanhood. Cotton or silk, Banarasi or Pochampalli, shimmering Kanjeevaram or multi-coloured bandhani, with the pallav draped front-to-back over the left shoulder or in the Gujarati style back-to-front over the right, the sari has stood the test of time, climate and body shape.
Of all the garments yet invented by man (or, not to be too sexist about it, mankind) the sari did most to flatter the wearer. Unlike every other female dress on the planet, the sari could be worn with elegance by women of any age, size or shape: you could never be too fat, too short or too ungainly to look good in a sari. Indeed, if you were stout, or bowlegged, or thick-waisted, nothing concealed those handicaps of nature better than the sari. Women looked good in a sari who could never have got away with appearing in public in a skirt.
Tharoor is less caustic and more rational than my elderly Aunts are, about how much the North is to blame:
So why has this masterpiece of feminine attire begun fading from our streets? On recent visits home to India I have begun to notice fewer and fewer saris in our public places, and practically none in the workplace. The salwar kameez, the trouser and even the Western dress-suit have begun to supplant it everywhere. And this is not just a northern phenomenon, the result of the increasing dominance of our culture by Punjabi-ised folk who think nothing of giving masculine names to their daughters.
At a recent Press conference I addressed in Trivandrum, there were perhaps a dozen women journalists present. Only one was wearing a sari: the rest, all Keralites without exception, were in salwar-kameezes. And when I was crass enough to ask why none of the “young ladies†present wore saris, the one who did modestly suggested that she was no longer very young.
Actually, it’s the youths! And the feminists!
Youth clearly has something to do with it; very few of today’s under-30 women seem to have the patience for draping a sari, and few of them seem to think it suitable for the speed with which they scurry through their lives. (“Try rushing to catch a bus in a sari,†one young lady pointedly remarked, “and you’ll switch to jeans the next day.â€)
But there’s also something less utilitarian about their rejection of the sari for daily wear. Today’s younger generation of Indian women seem to associate the garment with an earlier era, a more traditional time when women did not compete on equal terms in a man’s world. Putting on pants, or a Western woman’s suit, or even desi leggings in the former of a salwar, strikes them as more modern.
Freeing their legs to move more briskly than the sari permits is, it seems, a form of liberation; it removes a self-imposed handicap, releasing the wearer from all the cultural assumptions associated with the traditional attire.
I’ve noticed this about brown people, too. We are the last ones to keep it old skool in our “costumes” (Blech. I hate that word. As if I’d wear Kanjeevaram on October 31. Meh.):
I think this is actually a great pity. One of the remarkable aspects of Indian modernity has always been its unwillingness to disown the past; from our nationalists and reformers onwards, we have always asserted that Indians can be modern in ancient garb. Political ideas derived from nineteenth and twentieth-century thinkers have been articulated by men in mundus and dhotis that have not essentially changed since they were first worn two or three thousand years ago. (Statuary from the days of the Indus Valley Civilisation more than four thousand years ago show men draped in waistcloths that Mr Karunanidhi would still be happy to don.)
Gandhiji demonstrated that one did not have to put on a Western suit to challenge the British empire; when criticised by the British Press for calling upon the King in his simple loincloth, the Mahatma mildly observed, “His Majesty was wearing enough clothes for the two of usâ€. Where a Kemal Ataturk in Turkey banned his menfolk’s traditional fez as a symbol of backwardness and insisted that his compatriots don Western hats, India’s nationalist leaders not only retained their customary headgear, they added the defiantly desi “Gandhi cap†(oddly named, since Gandhiji himself never wore one). Our clothing has always been part of our sense of authenticity.
I REMEMBER being struck, on my first visit to Japan some fifteen years ago, by the ubiquitousness of Western clothing in that Asian country. Every Japanese man and woman in the street, on the subway or in the offices I visited wore suits and skirts and dresses; the kimono and its male equivalent were preserved at home, and brought out only for ceremonial occasions…
What will happen once the generation of women who grew up routinely wearing a sari every day dies out? The warning signs are all around us now. It would be sad indeed if, like the Japanese kimono, the sari becomes a rare and exotic garment in its own land, worn only to temples and weddings.
Find the rest of his essay here. Thoughts?
::
Anyone who makes my heart swell by calling me a term of endearment I haven’t heard in over two decades gets what they want. 🙂 Wish everyone were this easy to please.
Click to enlarge.
I’ve read many of the comments below, which celebrate the beauty of wearing a sari “Gujurati-ishtyle”. While I have done that (with this very sari even!), I must gently demur– wearing one’s pallu the “boring” way ain’t so bad, I promise. 😉
And yes, all my blouses are that conservative. Not a word, brown fashionistas. Not. a. word.
Re: my last comment, cicatrix blogged about it on SM in 2005. i will admit that i haven’t investigated the issue thoroughly; however, my lack of interest in sari fashion competition coupled with persistent concerns about child labor in Kanchi are behind my reluctance to indulge in any more fancy, expensive silk saris.
This line totally cracks me up. Anyways, here’s a Punjabi response to Tharoor’s essay.
I’m afraid I’m coming in rather late on this discussion. Now, as a Bengali male, I have absolutely no issues with women deciding not to wear a sari because of issues of practicality, convenience, etc. But I think it’s a tad hypocritical to present the feminist perspective in this matter (woman’s prerogative to choose what she wants to wear) on one hand, and at the same time complain about the so-called displeasing aesthetics of saris when worn by certain other women (“Have you ever SEEN an auntie with rolls spilling out everywhere?”, “I was surprised [and kinda disgusted] by old aunties’ who had the flab around their waists/stomach hanging out of their saris,” etc.).
And, for the record, I have seen quite plump and short women carry off the elegance of the sari perfectly well. So, speaking solely for what looks appealing to me, I am with Yo Dad on this one.
I do recall, rather vividly, the moment when I gained this appreciation for saris. It was a birthday party for one of my classmates, and she and the other girls had all turned up dressed in saris. Now, these were girls I had known since kindergarten — one was used to seeing them as peers, as sexless pseudo-siblings almost, where even the stray thought of a romantic fling would have been summarily dismissed as incestuous. But seeing them there, not in the blouse and skirt of the school uniform, or the tops and jeans that they usually wore, but in gorgeous, glorious saris, was to see a bevy of goddesses, plump and short, tall and skinny, in their prime. I don’t believe any straight male at the party was the same thereafter; we had all found ourselves more than a little tongue-tied at the bash, and looked a little shell-shocked when we left.
good post Shaad.
Shaad, that was poetry.
What I find interesting in many of these comments, including Shaad’s, is the manner in which discussions of women’s fashion always turns on the question of their bodies and their sexuality. Tharoor’s column begins with these words: “EARLY IN 2007 I found myself unwittingly caught up in a row over sexism (mine)….” Damn right. But some of the male commenters here don’t seem to have quite recognized their own sexism the way Tharoor seems to have.
Of course, Tharoor, by his own account, didn’t arrive at this recognition on his own–it took a barrage of what he euphemistically refers to as “feedback,” and then describes this way: “Practically every woman in India with access to a keyboard rose up to deliver the equivalent of a smack across the face with the wet end of a pallu.”
For my part, I’m just glad that the smug wannabe novelist got what was coming to him.
“What I find interesting in many of these comments, including Shaad’s, is the manner in which discussions of women’s fashion always turns on the question of their bodies and their sexuality.”
what exactly was sexist about Shaad’s post? an appreciation (said with good taste) for female pulchritude in what he considers an attractive garment? discussions of men and men’s fashion also revolves around their bodies and sexuality. look at fashion shows. it’s all about bodies and sexuality. designers themselves do that. it’s human nature, although that nature runs the spectrum from tasteless to tasteful. irrationally demanding women/men wear one thing is quite another from recognizing that times change but still finding something attractive or alluring and feeling a sense of loss. tharoor can be a bit pompous but i really don’t see anything wrong with shaad’s post. if that’s sexist, then there’s no point in saying anything. there have been far more sexist comments about women and men on these threads. and what about shaad’s good point about people using the feminist argument but themselves making rather sexist and anti-feminist comments about women’s appearances?
Point taken.
Will we hear the end of this already? I am a woman, a few years younger than Shashi. I am always in pants, and sometimes in a salwar set. But to occasions that matter, i always wear a sari, even with a body that would look good in western gowns, etc. Shaad, I like your message.
And to all the “feminists” out there – you ARE wearing what you do to cover your BODY now, isn’t it? So where does the question of “sexist” come in the picture, here? If you are really all feminists, including the men who write, then why bother covering you body, people?
Pathetic.
Yes it is unfortunate that very few Indian women wear sarees these days – irrespective of how the young girls look they LOVE to ape the West (in spagetti straps/shorts and the like) ignoring our centuries old culture – as if the churidar/salwar kameez are very inconvenient for running to catch the bus!! So much art lies behind the making of a saree- the beautiful colours that India has – but the current population prefers ‘black’ although we are very brown!! and they don’t realise what they are missing and losing in COPYING ALL that’s wrong in the West.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saree#Origins_and_history – while the history of draping a long length of cloth is really old, the saree in its present form is relatively new, especially with respect to the choli. Dhoti-wrap type of outfits (sometimes the length of today’s miniskirts) are also visible in several south indian temple carvings, usually with bare upper bodies. This is considered outrageous today. It’s just an evolution of fashion. We have lehengas which have evolved from the sarees and clothes will continue to evolve. It’s not like we are really changing traditions, clothes are just evolving like they’ve always done for millenia before.
Y is the author putting down north indians? So what if our men and women have unisex names? It’s part of our religion to treat men and women equally hence the names. I could go on to say something about the looooonngggg last names south indians have but that has nothing to do with why salwar kameez is worn more than sarees. It’s true salwar kameez is more practical and easier to handle then a saree. Saree takes practice. I agree the saree is beautiful and elegant but so is the salwar kameez and it is just as indian as the saree. India is a mix of a lot of cultures and not all of them have the saree as their traditional garment so stop trynna shove it down the entire india’s throat. It offends me when people think that all the women in india should be wearing sarees. Y? Wear what you like, and what suits you.Heck I wear a saree once in a while too, but no one gets mad at me for abandoning the salwar kameez. I am not saying forget your traditions but the saree is not everyone’s tradition.
If south indians are having a problem trying to get their women to wear a saree, don’t blame the salwar kameez cuz it’s indian too. Try to find a solution as to how a saree can be made easier to handle so that your women can wear it everyday and still manage to comfortably go about their business. Like someone said evolve and adapt.
The Sari is a beautiful garment, along with the many other styles of Indian dress. The problem, the actual undertone of the article has nothing at all to do with fashion. The message is about the fact the WOMEN are choosing for themselves and deciding what is best for them. One can dare say that, the culture has been one of the last final frontiers. I agree that feminism, which per some men- has been blamed for every decision a woman makes without her male heirachy in mind), has nothing to do with it. If Feminism, means that a woman can choose for herself, what is best for herself…then, well…99% of all women would fall under this category. The times, they are not changing…They have CHANGED! Wear it! Don’t wear it! Women determine their own code of beauty.
Noticed this post under the “recent comments” tab, and I’m wondering if it is weird to comment on a 2 year old post? Anyhoo..
As a career woman who’s been living in India for the past 3 years, I just had to comment. Sarees are very much alive and kicking today, at least in the part of India I’m from (south India). Like someone said earlier, as little girls we couldn’t wait to be old enough to wear sarees. I did my graduation in South India, where sarees are still considered formal wear. We wore sarees to our graduation party, and yes, the guys’ faces were pretty much as Shaad said! 😀
I have to agree with Tharoor on this one, the saree suits every woman, of any size and shape, as any figure defect you have can be concealed by the saree. And you can drape it to be as revealing, (or not!) as you choose; the entire spectrum of styles from sexy to demure is open to you. C’mon, both film stars and nuns wear sarees, that’s got to tell you something. Having said all this, I personally opt to wear sarees for special occasions only, (and stick to salwar kameezes for work), as I am not exactly an expert in wearing one, and I hate badly draped sarees. But my sister wears one to college and is as comfortable wearing a saree as anything else. Heck, I’ve even seen women in sarees riding bicycles! It’s all about your personal comfort level and expertise.
Side note: someone mentioned that it’s indicative of our culture of repressed sexuality to “swathe women in yards of cloth”, which conceal their figures, and mentioned salwars as a case in point. Dude! Have you seen said salwars? When you want to look hot, but can’t be bothered with the baggage of a saree, there is nothing more sexy than a well cut, figure hugging salwar suit. I don’t know how it is overseas- maybe you get less variety?- but in India, you get a rangee of styles for every occassion- casual, formal, can’t-be-bothered, night out, yada yada yada, for every body type. (I’m starting to sound like a sales girl, amn’t I? :)) For example, the sleeves of Anna’s blouse in that picture is waaay out of fashion on this side of the ocean. (Sorry, Anna. Other than that, you look simply gorgeous :)) Anyone under 35 opts for itsy-bitsy sleeves, which are just on the right side of sleevelessness. At the risk of making sweeping generalizations, some of my N. Indian girl friends even opt for spaghetti straps!
So, coming back on-topic after that sartorial outburst, I didn’t find anything offensive at all in Tharoor’s article. (except that bit about the Punjabi naming trends, WTF was that?) Give the poor guy a break, he was just indulging in a bit of nostalgia 🙂 IMO, the saree’ll never go out of style.
Just my two cents..
I wish I saw this article before and commented on it 2 years earlier..
Anyways. OK so Tharoor loves sarees and wants to see sarees everywhere . Nothing wrong with that. And he laments on the emergence of “western clothing” and salwar suits. Now I have something to say about the western clothing part. Pants for women shouln’t be called western clothing. Rather it should be called modern clothing. Mind you even 80 years back western women wore something like this http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/20027580-r%20copy.jpg . They rode horses (dangerously) side-straddled(2 legs on one side). Then came the bicycles making things easier for transport those days and the long flowing gowns HAD to go. For the sake of times. The world wars made it obligated for women to work in factories(devoid of men as they went to war) and pants became more and more common. Now I am a housewife living in the outskirts of the city and have to ride a scooter for commuting(no bus-stops here). I have rode the scooter with saree once and had difficulty braking and was cautioned by fellow motorists how the pallu is getting dangerously closer to the rear wheel. Now even 80 years back there weren’t scooters for Indian women. Neither did they have to commute long distances for necessities(the men did that and the closed village systems were self sufficient). So women here just gotta wear the pants and salwars. Its not exactly about rebelling or fashion. Lifestyles has changed a lot in the past 100 years. Modes of transport has changed a lot. There are machines(different forms) everywhere. Clothing had to adapt to it. I’m sure in another 100 years clothing is going to change even more suiting the lifestyle changes of the times then. Why even WITHIN our generation you see small changes not present 10 years back. Bags and Pants are having the ipod/mobile pockets. People couldn’t have imagine that in early 90s really. Tharoor should have looked at the bigger picture before accusing the “young women” for abandoning the age-old attire. And theres no use of wearing a dhoti in the swearing-in ceremony[like he did] to make a point. It makes no sense.
I love saris. However, I have some problems with it: 1. The bottom will drag on the floor and get dirty. 2. Harder to clean. 3. Takes a longer time to put on. 4. How do you go to the toilet? Does it take 45 minutes to pee? 5. You can notice much more clearly when the girl perspires in her blouse
Perhaps we should update the sari..
Hi I am Malaysian Indian and about to get married in June. I’ve a rather important decision to make and some of the questions I have remains unanswered..would you be able to help me out?
Is it necessary for the bride to wear pattu saree on her wedding day? That kind of limits my choices. What if I find pattu less appealing and prefer a different material yet it would still look grand as any wedding saree? Is that unaceptable? Please help.