My First Sari

I needed a sari to wear to my friend Chan's womanhood ceremony. Auntie Letchimi, her mother, was the determiner of the dress code at this event, and she'd declared that as adopted members of the family, the grown women in our family should be wearing saris, too. At 15, I might not have been totally grown up, but I was rather tall, so it was time for sari shopping.

Auntie Letchimi, Mom, Lizzy, and I went out to Little India to look for one. Little India is a region on our island with dozens of shops pressed tightly together. The roads are packed, with cars parked along both sides, and inside the little shops, the air is heavy with humidity and the smell of burning incense.

We found a gorgeous black beaded sari. Sari blouses have to be custom made for each person--in Little India, that usually just means a wait of an extra hour while the on-call tailor for each sari shop whips up a quick blouse. But before they can start to sew the blouse, measurements have to be taken.

What I didn't know at this time, was that measurement-taking for a sari blouse was a community event. There I was, sweating in the middle of an overcrowded shop, stacks upon stacks of brilliantly beaded saris surrounding me on all sides, with my arms out to my sides and a middle-aged uncle with a measuring tape held tightly around my non-existent bust, while everyone in the shop--my mom, Auntie Letchimi, the cashier, a lady who was shopping for her own sari, the shop assistant, and probably a few others--argued with the tailor about every single detail of my sari blouse. Comments were flying back and forth in both English and Tamil. The length of my sleeves, the depth of the neckline and the cut-out in the back--everything was discussed. The tightness of the bodice was also brought up. "She needs to breathe!" argued my mom, while the others tried to explain to her that sari blouses need to fit very tightly so that they don't move around or gape when being worn. My Mom went for the old, "She has a very strict grandfather" line when they were discussing how low the neckline should be cut, and we eventually gave up adding any opinions when the entire store began to discuss whether the blouse should close in the front or in the back.

(Now, after having worn 6 or 7 saris in my day, I am a staunch advocate for blouses that close in the front because it's physically impossible to put on a blouse that closes in the back without help.)

Auntie Letchimi went on to bargain for a total price that included the sari and the tailoring, as well as the sari slip. She also talked them into a promised time of when we could pick the blouse up, and we left the shop in search of a much-needed iced drink to consume while waiting for tailor to work his magic. I didn't know what I was getting into when I walked into the sari shop that blistering afternoon.

Chan's ceremony involved much that we didn't understand. All of the women in the family, including myself, were lined up on the street outside the house, given trays of the many traditional gifts that she was receiving, and then walked into the house in a stately fashion, and presented the metal trays of gifts to her. I don't remember exactly what was on each tray, but I do remember that each family who attended was supposed to bring something made of gold as a gift--we were told that, traditionally, the gold gifts received at the womanhood ceremony would compose that woman's marriage dowry--they were the wealth that she would bring into a marriage, and it was better for a woman to be known as bringing a great deal of gold into a marriage, because then she herself would be treated as more valuable by her in-laws. We bought Chan a gold bracelet. During the ceremony, each of her aunts blessed her. Throughout the evening, she changed into 5 or 6 different saris for different portions of the ceremony. There was lots of food for all the guests, but Chan didn't eat because of the heavy makeup and the heavy flowers and jewelry made her uncomfortable.

Fun Fact: Chan, whose ceremony I bought this sari for, is the mother of little Shiloh, who I now teach preschool to 5 days a week.Other fun fact--nearly a decade later, I can still wear this sari, and I still think it's gorgeous.

If you'd like to see more photos of saris, there are more in this post. I've gotten a little better at pleated and draping them over the years.

{This is Day 5 in my 31 Days series: 31 Days of Growing Up in Malaysia}