THE NINE YARD WONDER: #100SAREEPACT

(Why I needed to be motivated to wear a saree)

Dancing to the tune of Megher koley rod heshchhe (Tagore’s song on autumn) in Class KG and that too in front of an audience in school is one of the earliest childhood memories that still sparks vivid. But what was more was the memory of wearing my mom’s red sari that she had meticulously pinned so as to retain its form and shape till the programme ended. And not even for a minute I felt uncomfortable in the first sari of my life. Then what went wrong, that almost for decades I never ever wanted to touch a sari, buy one or even wore one to wedding ceremonies?

Remember the Saraswati Puja at the tutorial during my teens. I stood apart in a skirt. Was it because I felt I would stand out from the rest with all the boys staring at my long legs that would otherwise have been draped in some red and yellow sari? Don’t know why I deviated from the usual tradition of wearing a sari on Saraswati Puja! But surely I remember how all the boys of the tutorial including the one who would be my future husband, had almost made a beeline for me leaving aside many of those who were looking really pretty and somewhat clumsy in saris. The pride of a teenage girl being followed by all the boys as we sang one song after another at the Antakshari meet. Was that enough to make me wear western outfits all my life?

Till 40, I hardly remember owning a sari, though I had bought many for my mother who has always refused to wear anything but a sari and undoubtedly I have always looked up to her in her elegant and graceful sari clad look. She has trekked mountains, gone on hikes, travelled the length and breadth of the country, run a school of toddlers, all done efficiently in a sari. For me it’s a Herculean task. When I gifted her salwar suit pieces or even wrap around skirts, she made it very clear she felt uncomfortable in them. I always felt shocked at her dismissals!

Yet, absolutely nothing, even my mother’s sari clad graceful image, could ever inspire me to wear a sari. Compliments from friends that I have a great height and would carry a sari the best, or even male friends gifting me saris as they travelled across various states or countries like Bangladesh, could not inspire me to wear one. I always did find an excuse for not wearing one. The obsession for not wearing it had become such a compulsion that I even refused to wear one on my wedding day. And bundled off my registry marriage in a salwar suit. Only had to wear a sari for the reception and felt immensely uncomfortable and irritated.

But after years of neglecting the most elegant and sexy attire of the world, I have become completely hooked to it off late. And indeed I now realise why two working women of India had to start a #100sareepact that almost turned into a movement. When nothing, absolutely no compliments or inspirations or gifts or even rebuke could make me wear those yards of fabric, this movement has indeed taken me off guard and I have somehow got into the pact of wearing atleast two saris a week, even at times hiring them from friends, buying my own or lifting them from my mom’s wardrobe. 

But for all these years why didn’t I wear one? And why many working women like me do not wear saris? Is it because sari in India relates to some traditional patriarchy? We relate married women to saris and ghunghats for years, and wrapping oneself in saris so that the male members of the sasurbari will not be able to see any part of the body. I however, never believed in this psyche. For me sari was always the sexiest attire. It can be worn in the most sensuous way possible revealing and well not revealing any and every part one wishes to. Then may be as my husband had put in once I never wished to look sensuous?

Many friends said since wearing sari is often a compulsion, not wearing one is seen as an indication of a woman being allowed to make personal choices. This also applies to symbols of marriage, like sindoor and mangalsutra. One friend in particular said she wore jeans when her in laws were away and switched to sari when they were around, just to show them respect! And undoubtedly I still hear many often criticize me as the ‘liberated, modern, westernised’ woman for wearing western wear even to ceremonies. 

But for me it was always a question of comfort and economy. I found skirts and tops, jeans and tops anytime more economical than buying a sari and all the accessories they need. Not to say the dearth of good tailors to make blouses, and the laziness of a working mother who had no time to hunt for matching blouses or run across potholed streets while on work in a sari.

Yet, I must say today I realise I have no excuse whatsoever to make a sari work on me. And needless to say I have truly discovered how a sari makes me the woman that I am.

TRACTOR GIRL MAKES INROADS INTO KHAPLAND

(A real life rural parallel to NH10’s Meera)

As the Satabdi Express chugged into Chandigarh station, what caught my eyes was the tremendously clean and neat platform, less crowded, well managed, passengers and porters following rules strictly instead of shoving and pushing people around and an utterly urban business-like aura. For a first-time tourist who is increasingly used to the mayhem of an over-crowded Howrah station, Chandigarh surely was a pleasant surprise. As the exceedingly handsome Himachali chauffeur sent by Oberoi, led our way to the black sedan waiting to take us up the hills, my husband turned to my son and declared we shall be travelling through Khapland.

I found no sign of the Khapland terrain I was used to viewing and no hint of travelling down NH10, though my son proudly replied back to his dad: “Oh so its here that NH10 was shot!” And then turning to me added: “Mom, Virat Kohli’s girlfiend was the lead actress.” As if I didn’t know! But I chose to remain silent, smiling away like an innocent bride who has just stepped into the outside world, getting to know so many new things from the men who would be escorting her to the hills.

Well, what I did realise is that we would be driving through a major part of Haryana, a state that has a dubious reputation for its skewed sex ratio. But when the trip down the semi-barren roads of Khapland throws up news of a bold woman who dared to infiltrate the male world of mechanised farming, then surely one gets a real-life parallel to Meera and her NH10.

The four lane mountainous highway reminded me of Hollywood movies, though I knew the little glades dotting them often came up with horrors of honour killing or forced female foeticides. Every now and then as we passed through small villages and towns my son kept on pointing at women: “Dad, there are many girls around,” though his dad was more interested in the Kinnauri girls up in the hills than their Haryanvi counterparts. Probably NH10 had such an impact on my son, he felt he would see a land totally devoid of women! I had to explain what a lopsided sex ratio meant and that there were enough women still left in Haryana to roam the streets though most of them were veiled in ghunghats that almost came down till their bosoms.

And then when we thought we would just see veiled women all our way, we came across Suman Rani, the Tractor Girl from Hisar. She is an inspiration for sure, may be not like the urban Meera who had the intelligence and background to avenge the lords of the Khapland, but a rural educated mother of two who in her own small way made inroads into the hediously patriarchal society of Haryana.

Clad in a salwar kameez (and without a ghunghat for sure), this 27-year-old woman showed the courage to be the first woman in the region to have applied for a tractor driving license. And that’s how she decided to make inroads into the male domain where, women driving to grain markets or participating in mechanised farming is a taboo and never encouraged. 

However, just like the widows of Bengal had Vidyasagar and Rammohan Ray to help them, Suman has her husband Anil, her greatest confidante and friend who respected his wife’s wishes and helped her to gain a status that’s usually swept under the carpet when a girl is born in Khapland. Though the in-laws were not supportive, they did not oppose either.

Suman plans to take her kids to school, help her husband on the farms, drive to the grain markets and also ferry other women to the markets of they need to. That’s how her tractor will help her. She wants to set a trend so that other young women of the area would also be inspired to try out their hands in jobs that were so long considered to be out-of-bounds for them. It also means financial freedom, as Suman plans her husband to take up some other job and not spend more time in the fields, she would take care of that and her husband can thus earn the extra penny to help their children get a good eductaion.

As I watched the Tractor Girl, I somehow remembered what the police officer told Meera in NH10: “Gurgaon mein jab aakhri mall khatam hote hain, wahin aap ki democracy aur constitution khatam hoti hai” (Where the urban malls end in Gurgaon, democracy and constitution also end there, what starts next is the rule of Khapland). And as I said goodbye to Khapland and meandered up into the picturesque Solan Valley, I realised there is a woman who has proved the officer from NH10 wrong and may be will bring in a new era to Khapland.