Sari jahan se achha

Alia Bhatt wore a sari with a 23-foot train to Met Gala 2024 declaring, "there's nothing more timeless than a sari". Naomi Campbell stunned everyone at the French Riviera wearing a lavender sari. Last week, about 500 ladies in saris dazzled the Times Square in New York with a walkathon, as had many in London’s Trafalgar Square last year. Indeed, they had modest trains.

- R. PRASANNAN

The sari has come of age, declared the fashion press after the Times Square show. Wrong! In the south, girls in pavadai used to shift to half-sari after they came of age, and graduate to sari at the time of marriage. Wondered what pavadai means? Pav = legs; aadai = garment!

The sari came of age yugas ago. Alia Bhatt knew it or not, the sari is mentioned in the Rig Veda. It is ageless; even in this metric age, it is measured in yards. A vadhyar once told me that stitched clothes are not to be worn at vedic rituals, because they have been ‘polluted’ by the touch of iron; that’s why certain temples don’t let you wear shirts. The sari—as also the dhoti, veshti or mundu—has thus survived yugas ‘unpolluted’. To each, his faith.