Sari, Wrong Number

For years, we had prided ourselves on, to use Chishti's rather sentimental phrase, "the sari's capacity to reinterpret the cultural motif over and over again". But ironically, it was this very reinvention that may be leading to the sari's demise. Historians say the early sari had little resemblance to the present dress that goes by the same name.The sari of yore was little more than a cloth draped diaphanously over the lower half of the body, leaving the bosom bare. But each incursion from the North and the West added a fresh layer to the rudimentary dhoti, starting from the blouse and petticoat to the cumbersome modern sari invented in the nineteenth century to suit Victorian prudery. "A sari is the most uncomfortable dress to wear," complains paediatrician Asha Benkappa, who also teaches at the Bangalore Medical College.

One sign of the changing times is Fazal and Sons, a popular shop for saris on Commercial Street, Bangalore. But in the last few years, the shelf space for saris has shrunk to less than half a floor, the rest of the three-storeyed shop selling only salwar sets. In fact, Bangalore's jeans-clad generation, like their peers in Hyderabad and Chennai, are reinventing the concept of formal wear. "Young women like only western clothes. They wear salwar kameez for formal occasions like weddings," explains Dr Asha. "It gives them a chance to go ethnic." Since they can wear a bindi, flowers in the hair, bangles and mehndi with salwar kameez, they are saved the pain of wearing a sari even for formal occasions, she explains. Agrees Tyebji, "The post-independence woman, although she was willing to experiment with regional variations of dress, didn't want to give up her Indianness but the generation after her aspires to a different Westward-looking image."

Interestingly, in the pitched battle between western wear and traditional dress that the young are waging against their elders, the Islamic-inspired salwar suit is playing a piquant new role. "The salwar suit is providing a buffer zone against the powerful wave of westernisation," points out Chishti. This became evident a couple of years ago when Bangalore's Christ College imposed a new dress code on its students. Jeans and skirts were banned, girls were ordered to appear in college dressed only in salwar suits. But even a strict dress code may not be able to keep young women away from western wear. As Mohanjeet Grewal, a Paris-based designer, points out, "The salwar kameez is only the first step in the westernisation of our dress. It never stops with the salwar kameez, as you can see in our films."

However, die-hards like Tyebji insist that the sari will yet bounce back to life. "I think when the salwar kameez began to be sold in bulk, in markets like Lajpat Nagar, the trendy people rediscovered the sari as a fashion statement." Tyebji says the trend became perceptible in Dastkar a few years ago. "No one was buying our saris in the '90s and we had to shift to selling salwar suits. But a few years later, it resurfaced, this time as formal wear."

Fashion designers soon began to cash in on the trend, reinventing the sari as a hybrid dress with the navel-baring appeal of the ancient costume but with the silhouette and plunging necklines of western evening wear. Yves St Laurent once said that the only regret in his life was that he hadn't invented the sari. His Indian counterparts don't share his regret. For instance, Shaina N.C., a young designer from Bombay, claims not only to have invented 30 ways of draping a sari but also to give the sari a silhouette, transforming it from a boring cliche into a sexy evening dress. "I am the only designer in the world to make the sari into a formal ensemble," claims Shaina. "With my innovations of readymade blouses and even corsets, saris are again becoming the rage if you want to look elegant for two to three hours." The sari is dead. Long live the sari