Sari sari night

Exotic India: those words remind me of Ms. Cynthia Rivera, my teacher in Oriental History, who made me appreciate through literature and history and her lectures the wonder that is India. Learning through the eyes of Ms. Rivera, I was enthralled. Therefore, wouldn’t she be the best teacher to instill desire in a student to seek more knowledge on her own and speed to India not once, but twice, to experience that exhilarating feeling of awe? Yes, indeed!

What did I see in India aside from the pure white Taj Mahal, a symbol of love, and the Red Fort where I stood on the ornate balcony imagining the past emperor viewing the Yumana River as I did? Arabian horses ridden by captains and majors as we sat on director’s chairs on the huge polo field and Persian carpets that could drive the woman who wove them blind…

Winnie Monsod and I were together years back in New Delhi. Walking along a tree-lined avenue we chanced upon a horse-driven carriage with a bejeweled bride sitting inside. We followed her entourage of relatives who were garbed in see-through and silken fabrics, shining with a range of oranges at sundown as musicians played at the end of the procession. We were led to a grand hotel where the hosts found us peeping at the lavish celebration where the wedding and reception was to take place. Obviously, we were being watched all of the 40 minutes as we walked along with the entourage and had become their unwitting and uninvited guests to the wedding rites!

Our stay in India was memorable. The zipper of my Louis Vuitton luggage got stuck and our Indian bellboy very resourcefully got two brown jute sacks open at both sides into which we stuffed all my clothes. He then sewed the sides together and off to the airport went Winnie and I, with the most unique and cheapest luggage in the whole world made in India!

What else enthralled me? The sari on dark-complexioned and kohl-eyed women of India.

The sari is the longest-running feminine apparel in the world referred to as the sati — meaning strips of cloth found in the 5,000-year-old Indian epic, Mahabharata. Legend has it that “When the beauteous Draupadi, wife of the Pandavas, was lost to the Kauravas in a gambling duel, the lecherous victors, intent on humiliating and harassing Draupadi, caught one end of the diaphanous material that draped her demurely yet seductively. They continued to pull and unravel, but could not reach the end, and thus undrape her, and virtue triumphed.” In a metaphysical sense the Kauravas symbolize the forces of chaos and destruction, trying to unwind what is, in effect, infinity. They are finally forced to stop frustrated and defeated.

The sari is found in Indian art from sculptures of the Gandhara, Mathura and Gupta Schools of the 1st to 6th century AD in its earliest form as a transparent garment with a veil, leaving the bosom bare. Gradually the skirt and veil became of one garment. Speculating on its transition, it is attributed to the style created by Queen Noor Jehan, wife of the Mogul emperor of the 17th century. Another theory is it may have been a fusion between two cultures — Islamic and Hindu — that “led the comparatively relaxed Hindus to develop a style that robed the person more discreetly.” The third theory is held by some costume historians who believe the men’s dhoti, which is the oldest Indian draped garment, is the forerunner to the sari. Till the 14th century the dhoti was worn by both men and women. Thereafter the women’s dhoti started to become longer, and the accessory cloth worn over the shoulders was woven together with the dhoti into a single cloth to make the sari.

Indian civilization has always placed a tremendous importance on unstitched fabrics like the sari, which are given sacred overtones. The belief was that such a fabric was pure, being seamless. Regarding the unstitched garments, the undertone of Islamic culture presents itself through the single and plain unstitched cloth, the Ihram, used among the Muslims in their worship of the Kaaba in Mecca. There you see the evidence of mixed cultures.

The approximate size of a sari is 47 by 216 inches and it is an un-tailored length of cloth. I once wrapped myself in a sari many times; I didn’t know how to undo myself from the numerous yards of exquisite cloth with borders of abstract designs in silver and gold. Round and round I turned to free myself. The sari, properly draped, makes a woman feel graceful and sensuous. Mine was full of knots and tucks.

And who wouldn’t find these tips useful? From The Arts of Love and Life.

“Sweetening her breath with a perfumed substance, a lady follows a practice recommended by the Kama Sutra (literally, “Pleasure Manual”), an Indian classic on love and social conduct. Instructing leisured men and women on sex, etiquette and the choosing of a mate, the book recommends many polite accomplishments as requisites to proper living, among them: Spreading and arranging beds and couches of flowers… upon the ground; making lemonades, sherbets… and spirituous extracts with proper flavour and colour; playing on musical glasses filled with water; applying perfumed ointments to the body, dressing the hair with unguents and perfumes, and braiding it; the ability to know the character of a man from his features; acknowledgement of society’s rules, and of how to pay respects and compliments to others.”

So whoever said the Kama Sutra was just about making love was totally mistaken.