Better Skirts then Saree

“Where does this end go?” “Where did this end come out from”? “I have 10 pins put on, which I guess should be ok” “Goddamit, I am changing into a dress!” These are the normal thoughts every woman goes through whilst wrapping the five to nine yards of fabric around her. Yeah we are talking about our traditional garb – the Saree. You know the one in which Sushmita Sen looks super awesome and the one for which Aishwarya Rai was chastised for NOT wearing during her first ever Cannes Red Carpet appearance?

Quite honestly, it is far easier for us to wear skirts, dresses, jeans, t shirts to run around in for completing our chores rather than wasting half our life figuring out how to wear the saree and then tripping on it while eyeing the cute guy in the grocery aisle. Not that it has happened to us exactly like that. But it does make us wonder whether saree fashion is a dying traditional ‘art’ in our country? With sooooooo many different ways to wear this continent of fabric in our country, it is quite difficult for it to go extinct. One can be as sure of the saree dying a slow death as saying one day our country will have honest politicians or travel will become affordable. To make it wearable and appealing to masses, designer sarees have come out in various forms. We don’t want to be seen in the dreary cotton versions, hence the half saree or the denim saree or the leather saree or the lehenga saree are all the types our dear designers have come out with. Saree personifies elegance, confidence, beauty and courage- Elegance because it does make us look put together even if our life resembles a land mine explosion; Confidence because if worn right, one has to walk straight to make us look as good as Deepika Padukone in ‘Batameez Dil’; Beauty because saree is flattering on just about anyone and Courage because let’s face it, you are courageous enough to walk out of that door knowing it just might come undone during the office presentation.

But who wants to go and sit on those mattresses of our local market or the plushy chairs of the designer stores listening to, ‘Yeh last piece hai madam’? With the war rising between online retail and our shops, it makes more sense to buy sarees online with the click of a button or you know, clicking it ten times because you have 10 tabs open. Every saree sale will invariably have Bollywood Saree Fashion splashed across making you wanna nail the look whilst attending that condescending friend’s wedding. To make you want to buy saree online, just think about the traffic and the crowd you will be facing if you were to go to a store. Designer sareeswith their umpteen variants such as the saree gown help you getting into a win win situation with our ever confused mind of – Indian or western? The problem is that lots of the local workers tend to go out of business when we avail the 50% off in Forever 21 rather than Hastakala. However, knowing this we will still choose fashionable comfort over fashionably Indian any day.

But have you realized that even if the saree is probably attached to life support, it will take a lot of time to finally pass on to the afterlife? It is THE go to outfit for a formal occasion, the choice whilst attending a wedding; the IT thing to wear to make a statement. Though we would like to call it the ‘drape dead gorgeous’ (get it? get it?) item in fashion, it has a loooong way to go before it ‘falls’

(sorry, we cannot help it with the puns.)