The sari v/s churidar debate

well, I have just got to jump in!!

Between clients at work and exams for kids at home, Shashi Tharoor's column did not even register a blip on my radar.
This Sunday morning I have been catching up on my reading, this column and otherwise and the range of verbiage is mind boggling.

As one of thounsands of women who work both in and outside the house, i have no time to wear the sari for my 7 am exit from home, children in tow and two bags. Add the 1 foot high medians that have to be jumped over, the running for the bus (a company bus, thank god - so a seat is assured and i don't have to worry about eve-teasing) - and the sari is impractical to say the least. But when we go for celebrations, dinners, lunches, birthdays, parties I do reach out for my vast collection from every state in India (as I fondly refer to my collection).

At work, I reserve the sari for Ethnic day celebrations - which is a quaint practice in Indian companies!! More often than not, 9 out of 10 women are ensconsed in the ladies room, wearing the sari because they could not or did not wear it at home.

Do i feel guilty about favoring the churidar or western business over the sari? No.

I am not the keeper of my culture but I do my bit. With two daughters to raise (don't know what it is to have boys) , I can only give them values and i have realized that their values are going to be different from mine, as mine are different from my mom's.

Deep down I know that these values have a shared history but are shaped by specific circumstances and specific experiences. How much of me people might see in my child hopefully is not based on what she wears and what she eats but in her ability to be lady, confident in her own skin and compassionate with others.

Back to the sari debate - I wonder how my daughters will view the sari 10 years from now? Is it going to disappear? or is it something she is going to lovingly pull out of her closet for a whiff of cherished memories?

Does Mr. Tharoor have a thought on that??

Mr. Tharoor has already replied to the multitude of feedbacks he has received - and therein lies at least one answer to his posing - if his Danish boss could disparage Mr. Tharoor's elegant cream kurta, how many of us have to deal with CXO's and their hesitancies in coping with an increasingly globalized world? Not everyone is embracing the "flat world" - there is far more kicking and screaming than meets the eye.

Mr Tharoor, with your latest you gave with one hand and took away with the other : the last para bears testimony to why hundreds of women rose up with their keyboard - " In that "to begin with" lies he hope that my column will not have been entirely in vain".