Today is DAY 19 of the ‪#‎100sareepact‬! Thank you so much dear Anju Maudgal Kadam, Ally Mathan and Sudha Sekar!
I get many compliments on the way I DRAPE my saree, so, I thought I’d share the WHY’s and HOW’s of the way I drape mine!
Wearing a saree began in High School! I stepped on the pleats during a party game at the Farewell Party, and quickly stuffed them all back into the waist band of my petticoat!
When I joined College, my Mum made me wear sarees twice a week, so I wouldn’t be awkward in them later on!
In B.Ed College, we had to pleat the pallav and pin it up to the blouse, to stay tidy throughout our Teaching Demonstration. We were instructed to ‘BE ACTIVE’ throughout the lesson!
Hah! That sounded WORSE THAN SCARY to us young girls, whose 18 year old students seemed like half-grown men! We felt like poor, little rabbits in front of a huge, hungry ANACONDA!
But the pleating and pinning really helped us to ‘ACTIVELY’ engage the class, covering the ENTIRE STAGE between the Black Board and that crowd of staring faces! Phew!
One NEVER gets to apply in real life what one learns at College! So, when I landed my first job in an ALL BOYS’ SCHOOL,the word ‘ACTIVE’ changed to ‘ATHLETIC’! When teaching boys, you have to be able to dodge Paper Darts, balls made out of scrunched-up tin foil and empty plastic water bottles! You have to duck to avoid the odd Basket ball on your way to the School Canteen ! You may be required to dart swifty to the last row in class and confiscate that Comic book avoiding those JAGGED-EDGED DESKS! You might, on occasion, even have to intervene in a hand- to- hand combat between two angry students!
All these things require ATHLETIC PROWESS of a very high degree, which only a securely pinned saree can give you!
I beg to differ with my dainty, lady friends here, who are against ‘pinning up your saree, lest you spoil it’! In a RANI OF JHANSI situation, nothing will save you except a well-pinned saree!
After marriage, my Mum- in- law said: “ Don’t show your MADHYA PRADESH!”. So, I covered my midriff by pinning my saree to the side seam of my blouse!
The Lady Teachers in School, hated that white coat and tried covering it up with their pallavs only looking fat and ugly in the process! I decided to make the best of this DRESS CODE, by pinning the first pleat of my pallav securely across the front, thereby displaying my string of pearls and avoiding a ‘wardrobe mishap’ if I bent to pick up something!
A large, ornate brooch held the pleats in graceful folds! Ta! Da! I was done dressing in just three minutes flat! All it took was half a dozen pins to HOLD THE ENTIRE ACT TOGETHER!