Small Curiosities, Part 3: The Sari

India overwhelms the senses. I remember the first week that I arrived here, my senses were inundated: loud traffic, pollution, spicy food, the smell of the city, the chattering in Kannada that I couldn’t understand. But after I got over the initial shock, I grew to enjoy the stimulating environment, and instead of concentrating on the negatives, I began to see the overwhelming beauty and liveliness of the country. For me, this kind of frenzied beauty and liveliness is epitomized in the sari, with its incredible variety of colors, fabrics, embroidery and patterns.

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The sari (or saree) is a long strip of cloth, usually five to nine yards, wrapped around a woman’s waist and over her shoulder, and worn over a cropped, short-sleeved blouse and a petticoat skirt. There are many ways to wrap a sari, depending on region, social class, and personal style. The word sari is a corrupted version of the Sanskrit “sati” meaning strip of cloth. The word “sattika” was also used to describe women’s attire in ancient Buddhist Jain literature, called the Jatakas.

Cotton saris are usually worn for everyday use, while silk saris might be saved for special occasions. Women who work as maids or in construction sites (manual labor) may wear synthetic fibers that are lower quality but do not get easily crumpled and are easier to move around in.

Although saris are still a common sight, the younger generation (in Bangalore, at least) usually wears western clothing or something less complicated to put on, like kurtas, churidars, and pants or leggings.

Every sari has a design theme. The main part of the sari usually has a decorative border on three sides: on the two longitudinal sides, and then on the end piece (the pallav/pallu that goes over the shoulder) which builds on the two border designs in a sort of amplification or “climax” of the design.

 

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The patterns on a sari often have symbolic significance. For example, paisley symbolizes fertility, elephants for water and royalty, rudraksha (a seed from a tree grown in the Himalayas) for the eyes of Lord Shiva, and fish as a symbol for abundance.

The sari highlights the traditional Indian concept of a beautiful body type: a slim waist with large bust and hips, which is perfectly highlighted by the style of the sari. The midriff is left bare because it is believed to be the source of life and creativity; the Hindu thesis of creation states that when the cycle began, Lord Brahma, the creator, was born from a lotus flower which came out of the navel of Lord Vishnu.

 

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There are a multitude of ways to wrap a sari, but the most popular form in contemporary India is the nivi-style drape with a long line of pleats at the front of the waist.

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The sari was first mentioned in the Vedas (Rig Veda), the oldest Hindu text dating back to 3000 B.C., although it is possible that in their original form, they were worn even earlier in the Indus Valley Civilization. Statues from between the 1^st and 6^th century A.D. depict female priests in a sari wrapped in the ancient style, draped in a way that created a trouser-like form (called an Odissi Fishtail), which allowed for free-flowing and easy movement, which was especially important for dancing.

 

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Sari-like garments are also mentioned in the Mahabharata, Silappadhikaram, Kadambari, and the Natya Shastra, an ancient treatise describing dance and costumes. In the Mahabharata, the sari appears in the story of Draupadi, where Lord Krishna saves her dignity when the King’s noble men try to strip her of her sari, and he transforms it into an endless cloth and her honor is saved.

The sari was originally just a strip of cloth wrapped around the body, as Hindus believed that stitched clothing was impure. A blouse (choli) and petticoat are worn now, but its origins are unclear – perhaps it had to do with the arrival of the British or the Muslims, and their concepts of modesty. In ancient times, the upper body may have been left bare, or just covered by a breast band.

The dhoti, which is traditional attire for men, is believed to be the forerunner of the sari, which was worn by both men and women until the 14^th century.

I’d like to end with the folktale origin of the sari, which goes as follows:

The Sari, it is said, was born on the loom of a fanciful weaver. He dreamt of a woman, the shimmer of her tears, the drape of her tumbling hair, the colors of her many moods and the softness of her touch. All these he wove together. He couldn’t stop. He wove for many yards. And when he was done, the story goes, he sat back and smiled and smiled and smiled.

Gaatha

 

References

http://www.didiswardrobe.com/history-of-the-indian-saree-(sari).php

http://www.bhangrakids.com/info/sari.shtml

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Sari.aspx

http://factsfashion.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-sari-meanings-behind-the-cloth/

http://nishamadhulika.com/en/568-history-of-saree.html

http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/history-of-saree-1949.html

http://www.fancy-indian-saris.com/sari-history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari

http://www.sarisafari.com/how/nivi.html

http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-clothing/sari.html

http://thestoriesfromindia.wordpress.com/tag/origins-of-indian-saree/

http://www.didiswardrobe.com/history-of-the-indian-saree-(sari).php

Small Curiosities, Part 2: Dignity of Labor

When I was 17, I got my first job at a small Japanese bakery (with “a French twist,” aptly named Japonaise) in Cambridge, MA. I’d take the local 73 bus, which clattered its way to Harvard Square for 20 minutes, and then I’d take the Red Line one stop to Porter Square, from which the bakery was another 5 minute walk. I was still in high school at this point, so I mostly worked 7- or 8-hour shifts on weekends.

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I was usually the only one who worked at the Porter Square location, so I’d arrive in the morning to open up the shutters, plug in the showcases, wipe down the counters, help unload the day’s bread from the delivery truck, and get set on twist-tying bags filled with fluffy, sliced loaves, all the while my early bird customers would begin to trickle in for their morning caffeine and pastry kick. I remember that in the bakery’s heyday, I’d ring up about $800 USD a shift. I felt a sense of competency in taking care of this small shop on my own during my shifts, interacting with all kinds of customers using both my English and Japanese (even my Spanish at times!), and a growing amount of independence from earning a small salary (even though financially, it wasn’t necessary for me to be working, and I was earning only $0.50 above minimum wage per hour).

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Dignity of labor is the idea that all jobs should be respected equally regardless of whether they are intellectually or manually based. The word dignity originates from the Latin dignus or dignitas which means “a certain respect or worthy of esteem and honour.” However, my experience in India has been that if a young person is working a “menial” or minimum wage job, it means that their parents are unable to financially support them. The attitude seems to be that working a job at a place such as McDonald’s or a Café Coffee Day is “below” certain members of the population.

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This attitude towards menial work appeared, for example, in right-wing critiques of Sonia Gandhi. They put her off as a “waitress and au-pair” who actually had to work to put herself through school, and how could someone like that hold a position of power in a country of over a billion people? This attitude is problematic if people wish to improve their situation but feel as though the jobs that are available are “below” them simply because they are manual-based or not held in high esteem. In my experience in the U.S., working your first job is a rite of passage in some ways, and a step towards independence. Perhaps, this division of labor and status may be a hangover from the caste system in which different occupations (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras) eventually came to signify a hierarchy in status, rather than simply signifying someone’s livelihood. It is important to understand that historically the caste system was not necessarily strictly hierarchical.

Nowadays, the Dalit class (formerly “untouchables”) are stuck with “polluting” or socially taboo tasks such as garbage collection, cremation, leather-working, etc. which receive little respect and have low economic returns, leading to a cycle of poverty. Furthermore, with the existence of huge informal sectors, many of these workers are not offered formal protection or have enough political clout for collective bargaining.

As a small aside, the concept of a “polluting” occupation was the topic of a Japanese film, which won Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2009, about a man who prepares the dead for cremation (nōkanshi), and is the subject of prejudice from his colleagues and his wife, who at a point refuses to touch him. Distributors were reluctant to release it on the similar basis of the public bias against those who handle the dead:

The organization that I work at in Bangalore employs maids, who are often the mothers of children enrolled at our Learning Centres. I admire the fact that our organization employs children’s parents who find it difficult to find stable employment due to lack of education. However, the word “maid,” for me, is rather loaded with hierarchical connotations (perhaps due to the fact that back in Victorian England, for example, maids were at the bottom of the domestic servant pecking order). It’s a rather alien word for me, coming from a country where domestic workers are typically employed only in single-parent families, or one with two working parents, or wealthy families. I’d say domestic workers are often hired out of necessity rather than convenience, and I’m used to hearing the words “cleaning lady” or “housekeeper.”

In the U.S., many parents expect their children to start helping with household chores as they get older (cleaning their room, helping with dishes, washing their own clothes), which is symbolic of their growing independence. Perhaps, in this sense, familial interdependency is a crucial aspect of Indian culture that affects a child’s work ethic. It is normal for children to live with their parents during and after their university education, and at times until they are married. This is vastly different from their counterparts in the U.S., where the cost of higher education is exorbitant to the point that parents may be unable to pay fees, and many colleges require students to live in dormitory housing, which is an additional cost. Therefore, individuals may start living independently from their parents as early as age 18, which often also means they start thinking about their financial independence earlier as well.

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At the organization I work at, there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences between employees and “the help,” as it were. It is very common for people here to share food, whether it is their lunch, a pack of cookies, or something they bought at the store. However, this kind of food-sharing is never done with the maids. One incident that I heard from a teacher and friend also revealed to me an aspect of the social divide. A maid poured a bucket of water that she had been using for cleaning from the second floor, which was taken by the wind and accidentally splattered onto a teacher’s sari. He said that she reacted in an extremely condescending way that made the maid feel ashamed, yelling at her in a language she did not understand (probably in front of her child, who would be enrolled at the Centre), saying she would take pictures of her splattered sari and send it to the CEO, who should then fire her, while the maid was apologizing profusely without quite understanding. He said it would be unimaginable for the teacher to behave like this to a fellow teacher.

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I’m not saying that dignity of labor lacks only in India, but it’s a recent realization that I’ve had that’s been made more poignant through the lens of cultural difference. Especially because I personally believe in the dignity of labor, and its absence means a lack of social acceptance and respect for those who work hard in order to give themselves and their families a chance at a better life.

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