The sari incident

A few weeks ago I asked my embroidery teacher to show me how to wear a sari. My husband has often asked me to wear one, but I felt nervous about this and was convinced western women in sari look foolish. It's true the first demo of how to wear a sari had been made to me by my husband trying to show it on himself with a green chiffon sari and we laughed a lot.

Little by little, seeing pictures of other western women married to Indian men wearing saris, I changed my mind.

My teacher explained that often on the end of the sari, some extra material is included to make a blouse, and showed how to recognize it. She also explained that you must line the bottom front of the sari. I came home very excited and showed my husband what I'd learnt.

Then I decided to have a blouse and petticoat made for my favourite sari. We went to a tailor shop in the Indian quarter and I tried to explain that I wanted lining for the sari and a blouse. The man spoke very little French so communication was difficult but I trusted my husband would do the translating.

However, it seems in Tamil Nadu they don't line the sari if it has a heavy border (my teacher is from the North East) as my MIL confirmed.

Then a few days later, we went back to the tailor shop. The blouse was too tight, and they had stitched the sari into a kind of skirt ! I was furious. Later a friend told me in India they prepare saries in that way only for very young children grrr....

A lot of talking followed, the blouse was enlarged. More talking followed and a lot of laughing. I asked DH what that was all about. It turns out he was feeling bad for the shop owner and to make him feel good he'd said now the owner was OK but that he would be getting more tension at home from me. And the shop owner replied "give her a kiss, it will be alright".

Isn't that sweet ?

In a way maybe the reason I got so many surprising good experiences in India was because my husband is smoothing things up all the time :o)