We have a framed photograph in our house. It features my mother outside our old farm house, standing around some droopy ferns. Age has spilled all over the photograph, but even though the quality has faded, my mother stands out. She is around 16 or 17 years old, short and skinny. She wears minimal makeup, her hair is plaited, she has bangles on her right arms and she’s wearing a saree.
There is no indication that she is uncomfortable or that she has pushed in her body into a tight piece of clothing. Nor is there any implication that she has been on a diet to fit into the clothing. She is just young, happy and free; the saree is the final flourish to her joyful youth.
My mother is currently 55 years old. Last December, she again chose the saree for the nuptials of her best friend’s daughter: an orange saree, with her hair tied up into a bun and freshly plucked jasmines circled around it.
Throughout her life, my mother has returned to the saree again and again. I have seen her choose the saree for marriages, anniversaries, birthdays, funerals, parent’s meetings, graduation days…
In comparison to the old picture, my mother’s body has certainly changed. Work, raising children and general life-stress has had an impact. As a result of a heart condition, my mother can only manage limited exercise for very short stretches. Her body can never return to that of her youth but with the saree, she has never been driven to self-deprecation. The saree has been her companion through life, and a very supportive companion at that.
Sezin Koehler summarises the saree perfectly: “The sari fits every body type, from portly to pint-sized, and makes them all look beautiful in their unique glory.”
Award-winning TV journalist and anchor, Bharka Dutt, says that the saree’s “one-size-fits-all style” is non-judgmental about body size or body type. This is especially important because bodies change throughout one’s life and my mother’s certainly did. When my mother wears a saree, I do not see a flash of anxiety about her age, body or current circumstances.
Like my mother, Laila Tyabji has expressed a similar connection to the saree, particularly as she approached old age. Tyabji has many professions (including social worker, writer, and founder of Dastkar) but she is primarily a designer and craft activist.
On approaching her 50th birthday, Tyabji cut her hair and changed her wardrobe entirely to sarees. She occasionally sported some jeans but abandoned even those as her body kept changing. In an article for The Ladies Finger, she praises the saree as a multipurpose textile because it “can be a veil, cradle, towel, sunshade, handkerchief, duster and keychain”.
Essentially, the saree can be moulded into just the right item when needed. Adaptability is one of the saree’s biggest strengths.
In November 2017, the New York Times published a largely disputed article called In India, Fashion Has Become a Nationalist Cause. The author, Asgar Qadri, stated that the current government had used sarees to colour the country’s national identity as Hindu. To back up his argument, he cited Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, the exhibition ‘Banarasi Textiles Revival Movement’ that promoted the Banarasi saree, Gujarat’s ‘Symphony of Waves’ and examples of past leaders clothes.
But Qadri failed to recognise the South Asian diaspora. Many South Asians have fled their home countries and have established a base in other nations. They too have retained the saree regardless of their culture, religion, caste or race. Moreover, Qadri failed to understand that the saree does not belong primarily to the Hindu culture of India. The saree has many variations and styles across the South Asian continent. For example, Sri Lanka has a culture of sarees that is distinct from the styles and traditions of India. Those from the hill country of Kandy, for example, have a very particular method of styling the saree, called osaria-style.
Women responded in outrage to Qadri’s article. Nehmat Kaur, in The Sari Has Never Been About Hindu Identity, stated that the saree cannot be labelled because it does not “lend itself to neat identity-based boxes – women wear it regardless of their religion, nationality, caste, class or region of origin.”
Similarly, Bharka Dutt presented a complete rebuttal of Qadri’s article in The Washington Post. While she agreed that, yes, India happened to be a country of inequality and deeply rooted social structures, she called the saree the “most democratic clothing; it cuts across classes and castes, regions and religions, albeit with delightful variations in weave, fabric and style of draping”.
In her piece Dutt also pointed out that Qadri’s article was almost entirely made up of male voices. Throughout South Asia, female representation has been generally controlled by men. This extends to representation in spheres such as government, media and entertainment. For example, India’s film industry is dominated by males, full of dated representations of hyper masculinity, and presents many female characters in one-dimensional roles (usually, they are members of the family or a primary love interest).
But women have been begun taking back control of how they are represented. They have begun controlling their image through social media, and South Asian women are no exception. Through social media that have learned to control and curate their image on their terms. They have also begun capitalising on their image.
Take a look at Chinna Dua’s Instagram. Dua educates people about the saree. She provides a detailed description about the material, the style of draping, bindi and jewellery.
Dua is not young but she is beautiful, educated about the textiles she chooses, has excellent taste and comes across as glamorous. Moreover, Dua exercises complete authority over the representation of herself. Through her caption, she educates her audience and subsequently, influences the reception she receives.
Dua’s Instagram does not present mere ‘looks’. There are multiple contributors, processes and stories that have added to it. She has distilled traditional practices, intensive labour and splashes of creativity into a single photo. On top of this, Dua chips at the stigma of age, body size and body type. Her combination of social media and choice of saree provides her authority over her body and her fashion choices.
There is no legislation or institutionalised means that enforce the saree on women’s bodies. They have the option of Western-style clothes such as jeans, tank tops and dresses, but they actively choose to retain the saree in their lives. The saree’s popularity has increased in this modern day and age; Tyabji believes this popularity is a result of a saree’s ability to shine a light on a person’s unique identity, important in an “age of globalised culture”.
This is particularly pertinent because Western clothes are mass-produced in factories. Western trends rule the market. Western styles have pervaded textile cultures.
The saree stands in direct opposition to current textile trends because the saree has never been trendy. Sarees might have appeared ‘suddenly’ to Western audiences, particularly because of the popularity of Bollywood films in recent years, but the saree has been around for centuries. It has never been the ‘next hot thing’. One does not need to keep buying sarees as the fashion seasons change. Sarees can also be passed through generations and only the jacket and skirt have to be adjusted.
The saree is many things: timeless, adaptable, non-discriminatory, complimentary, multipurpose and carries history in its threads. But perhaps, its greatest strength is that it is an ally that is forever faithful to the body that chooses it.
Cover image via Swadesh
About the author
Devana Senanayake is a Sri Lankan content specialist and multimedia journalist. She focuses on feminism, immigration, race, colonisation and marginalisation. She is interested in the celebration of diverse voices, experiences and projects run by people of colour.