Beyond the B.A.: Indian Summer: The Sorry Sari (blog 11)

In China, in the years before I would begin primary school, my

mother would as a very special treat, use her lipstick to give my

still voiceless sister and I round red dots just over the bridge of our

tiny, pointy noses.  She brought out the globe and showed us the

latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of the great subcontinent. 

She let me wear her jewelry as bangles.  Meanwhile, my father spent my

childhood reading us Rudyard Kipling, beginning with the Just So

Stories and moving on to Kim and the Jungle Books.  Not a purist,

I paid equal homage to the derivative Disney cartoon, ignorant of its

1960s era stereotypes, and becoming forever a fan of the wicked tunes

belted out by monkeys and bears.  I revelled in my orientalist vision

of a part of Asia so different from my home, and clung to this memory

for years to come.

Now I am all grown up as they say.  I have a little family of my

own, with my partner and our son. I have an undergraduate degree in

International Culture and Politics and am pursuing a masters in South

Asia. I cannot simply treat Indian clothes and adornments as a

Halloween costume, because there is something vaguely wrong about fetishizing a culture in the same category as vampires, ghosts and yellow M&Ms. 

Luckily for me, I am living here in India now, though far from a

princess, and my program rather unnecessarily has encouraged us to

purchase beautiful Salwar Kameez and other Indian clothes worn by regular Jaipurians.  Apparently not to do so, according to the literature they sent us about our study abroad experience, would endanger us.

Sitting across from a new Indian friend in a coffee shop I feel

ridiculous next to her jeans and teenage blouse.  All the same, I

relish the excuse to play Hindustani Barbie.  I wear a Bindi (Gwen Stefani would be so proud), I load up on bangles, I peruse bolts of fabric.  All the same,

it seems none of these efforts have preserved me from the usual tourist

centered grafts and eve teasing (sexual harassment). 

A case in point was the rather disappointing experience of my first

Sari.  I was so happy, "fair trade" material from Fab India in hand,

when I went to the boutique to be fitted, wearing of course my favorite

salwar kameez.  I needn't have bothered.  The

tailor was rough and rude and highly inappropriate, cupping my breast

from the side to determine my fit and managing to measure my leg in

such a way as to touch as near as possible to my crotch.  Trying to be

polite, granting latitude for cultural differences, by the end I felt

thoroughly disgusted, used and sad.  Then he leered over and asked if I

would wear my Sari with a padded or regular bra before seriously over

charging me.

I was left in the room voiceless.  I suffered from the verbal

constipation that comes with trying to function in a new language at

the intermediate level.  I knew I was mad, but I was hesitant.  Should

I shout at him in English and risk misunderstanding an unlikely, but

possibly, highly professional tailor?  Should I slowly stutter out my

stock subjunctive phrases: Would you treat your mother/sister/daughter

like that etc? 

Was this man's behavior a practice allowed by my videshi foreigner status?  Was it invited simply by endemic mistreatment of

women in a machismo culture?  Was it personal, did my breasts look

lonely?  I'll never know, and even though the crime was his, the affair

left me reluctant to pick up my prize, the coup d'grace of Bharatiy Barbie.

There are some days when you know that you will never, never, never

fit in, so you may as well get used to being special for all its roses

and thorns.  I bought a mango lassi at the cafe where I

study and thought about my failure to be a role model, and dreamed of

rising to the challenge of being a tough, no nonsense, beyond

respectable Indian woman who could have sassed that tailor down.  This

will for now drive my Hindi language motivations.  I may never unleash

a verbal barrage on anyone, better yet I may never want to.  I would

however like to be prepared.  Each night, probably dressed in my Sari,

all dressed up no place to go, I will practice and practice until I

have a sword in hand with which I may face any despicable tailor or

railcar Romeo who crosses my path.

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