Saris are for every woman, grace or seduction
Recently a celebrated writer tried to make the women (and men) believe that wearing a sari required curves, implying that women who are of a certain body type should not wear them. The remark was not only considered as stark body shaming, it also did injustice to the six metres that embrace everyone alike.
The only criteria that should decide whether one should wear a sari (or any other dress for that matter) should be the joy of wearing it. Nothing else matters.
Since childhood, I have been surrounded by women who wore saris. My grandmother, Amma as I called her, whom I had never seen in any other attire except a sari would take not more than a few minutes to drape one. I remember she always said to the ladies at the joint home, "If you have to use more than one safety pin to set your sari, you better not wear it."
Wearing a sari was a compulsion for the daughters-in-law. My mother didn't have much of a choice. Well, to be completely sure that her sari was in its place, she always used two pins and it didn't fail to make me giggle. After all, who doesn't love flouting a few of the norms set by the mother-in-law? When we moved to another city, her saris were put away inside the bed boxes, to be taken out only for family functions.
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| The only criteria that should decide whether one should wear a sari should be the joy of wearing it. |
I have no compulsion to wear a sari. No one tells me to wear a particular dress or not to wear one, and the choices are countless. I can wear whatever I want. Still, the sari is my absolute favourite choice. In this choice, I try to keep Amma's words and love for the sari alive in me. And yes, over time, with practice, I don't feel the need of using more than one pin.
Memories apart, I don't think there is any other attire that can bring as much grace to a woman than a sari. Whether it be Madhubala trying to get hold of her pallu in the glamorous photo shoot for Life magazine, Waheeda Rehman swaying to her freedom in Guide's "Kaanton se kheench ke ye aanchal", the uber sexy Zeenat Aman draped in a see through sari, Madhuri Dixit doing the dhak dhak or Priyanka Chopra looking her best in that yellow sari while receiving the national award. The sari never fails to add to a woman's charm.
The beauty about a sari is that you can drape it in various styles according to your liking and mood. You can drape a traditional silk or cotton sari, pleated at the shoulder to achieve that classy look. Or you can let the wind play seductively to the tunes of the free end of a georgette or chiffon sari. Team it up with a sexy-styled blouse and own the attitude.
A sari will do for you what you want it to do. So whenever you set your eyes on one, don't think there are too many already in the cupboard. It is never just a collection. It is joy. It is love, the kind of love that would never vary with the changes in your body, whatever they might be. Certain love stories do last forever. This is one of them.
The joy of wearing a sari comes from its form. Like the feminine spirit, a sari is inherently free. It is like a river that exudes elegance but knows how and when to break the bounds and show its passionate self. A sari in itself has the light and dark, the real and the fantasy combined.
In ancient India, any cloth pierced with a needle was considered impure. A sari is seamless, hence considered the purest form of cloth that can cover the female body. According to the Vedic principles, the navel is considered to be the source of life and creativity. Wearing a sari leaves the midriff bare, attracting powerful feminine energies that add up to the zest and creativity in everyday life.
A sari is the embodiment of the grace of a goddess yet at the same time, also a manifestation of the erotic. The sari being an essential part of the world of desire and fantasy cannot be ruled out. It knows the game of powerful eroticism inside out, always playing hide and seek with the feminine body, revealing a bit and leaving the rest for the realm of imagination. It is not just fifty shades but infinite rainbow-coloured desires contained in those six metres.
Let nothing come between you and your sari, love. Own it, flaunt it, love it.
(No conditions apply.)