Planets are colliding
Fantasies are flying
There’s simply no denying
That you are my Bombay love…
Ah, India night. Take one librarian, apply 6 yards of high quality silk, one hot curling iron, a slap-dash of make-up, allow for an hour of pure frustration when working with said 6 yards of silk, and you will come out with one – temporary – Maharani.
It amazes me that I know how to wrap a sari as well I do, considering I only did it once last year. I thought I would have forgotten how. I’ve never quite figured out how I taught myself how to do it so well in the first place. I think it started with the determination that – if I was going to be dressed in the garb of another culture – I was at least going to be respectful enough to do it correctly. This led to me standing before my cabin mirror with a pool of midnight blue chiffon at my feet and an instruction card in front of me, folding and refolding, pinning and re-pinning, until it finally looked like it was supposed to. I was paid the ultimate compliment that night when a friend of mine who was actually from India told me that I had done such a good job that he had assumed that I had had help from one of the other native India residents on board.
I suppose since then I’ve continued to take care, and a certain amount of pride, in knowing the basic folds and using the minimum amount of pins (not to mention that I hate pinning silk).
I seem to be unique amongst my female co-workers in that I adore wearing my sari(s), I suppose that much silk just naturally makes me feel elegant. The thing is, properly folded they’re extremely comfortable to wear, and surprisingly easy to walk in. Since I got the underskirt for it this year I find it no different than walking in a standard evening gown, the silk simply swishes around my ankles.
I will admit though, yards of fabric – probably more fabric and more coverage than anything else I own – and I still feel naked. For those of you who have seen my coveted ‘whiplash dresses’ (and if you haven’t, think ballroom dance costume and you probably wouldn’t be far off, my mother says that they’re “half a dress”), this might seem a somewhat strange confession. But it’s true. Perhaps it’s the ever-present knowledge that those yards and yards of fabric are held in place not by a zipper or a clasp of any kind, but by a series of complicated tucks and pleats and – if you cheat- a single safety pin at the left shoulder.
I own three saris. Well, two actually, one has never been unfolded and will eventually be making its way to England where my cousin will be able to wear it far more successfully than I. The reason I own two is that each year our CD gets the girls on his team a sari, and this year I will admit he caught me by surprise. He is very careful picking them out, trying to suit the colours to our build, our colouring and more importantly, our personalities. I always expect something of a relatively reserved colour – like the midnight blue I picked out for myself last year – so imagine my surprise when he unfolded the length of rainbow tie-dyed silk in front of me on the desk. The whole thing isn’t rainbow, that would be a bit much, the main body of it is jade green flecked with gold, but the train is multicoloured. Literally, it feels like wearing a rainbow. At first I wondered exactly what it says about me that this is what our cruise director thinks suits me, but then I realized just what a compliment it was to have a bright design scream my name.
I cheated of course, having packed my midnight blue all the way around the world I wasn’t about to let it collect dust in the bottom of my suitcase. As such I wore the new one for the first half of my evening shift and for the family portrait that we took as a team, and then I changed for the second half. Which is when I found out that I can wrap myself into my midnight blue in about 10 minutes.
The skills you pick up in this line of work are truly quite bizarre…