Wearing a sari

Last week, my always exquisitely dressed girl friend, AEDGF, said that she was going to a party, that she wanted to wear some Indian dancing clothes and produced a sari. I don't think sarees are very easy to dance in, particularly when it's a western woman dancing, and then I discovered that she didn't know how to put one on. So I showed her, and then got her to practise. It wasn't an easy sari because it was nylon and kept slipping.

In 1976 my Indian girl friend (IGF) first showed my Australia nursing girl friend and me how to pleat the folds. Most English women don't know how to do that. I have the photos of us in the saree shop surrounded by the most beautiful colours, hues, sheens. I bought two sarees, a turquoise one and a pink one with oil painted decorations, and there's a photo of me wearing the pink one.

AEDGF rang me over the weekend because we were going to meet at Toastmasters on Monday evening. Toastmasters is a speech making club, where we practise making speeches, and it is very interesting because you hear 4 or 5 short speeches, around 7 minutes, in an evening, and they could be on all sorts of different topics. Yesterday, one chap wanted to practise vocal variety, and told us a tantalising tale of Jack Landon's, then my coaching girl friend wanted to practise a presentation she was going to give to some sports coaches, and someone else spoke about her holiday in Cuba, showing us a photo of her being kissed by a dolphin.

AEDGF hasn't got a long slip to wear under her sari and wanted me to bring her one that she could borrow. And then I had the idea that I could do a demonstration speech on 'How to put on a sari'. I dressed for the part in my turquoise sari, struggling into the choli, eventually managing to breathe because it's a bit tight. I put on rather a lot of makeup, packed the pink sari, its slip and choli and went to Toastmasters. You must imagine the looks when I arrived because although it is Christmas and we'd said that we'd dress up, the 'dressing up' was a bit quiet. AEDGF had a Christmasy hat on her head, and a gold shiny polo necked jumper, and chief toastmaster had a tie with Father Christmas faces on it, but I was the most dressed. A couple of the women said I looked stunning, so that was a good start for my speech.

I started by saying 'Namaste', and what I was going to do, which slightly worried the men because they thought they were going to be subject to a bit of a strip tease, but then I pulled out the pink saree, spread it over the floor so that they could see how long it was, and while I was doing that, AEDGF was pulling the pink underskirt on over her trousers. I didn't give her the choli. Then I put the pink sari on her, made her turn round to show everyone, showed people how the pallu at the back of my sari was a different pattern and how far it hung, and that I could pull it over my shoulders or head. I put it over AEDGF's head, told everyone how a sari made you look and feel beautiful, and finished with another 'Namaste'.

I hope my IGF'd have been proud that I remembered her lessons from so long ago. I got husband to take some photos of me in the turquoise sari, and perhaps I'll put them on Facebook, or even here. I realise there are different ways of wearing a sari, and I could look some up on youtube, but I'll stick to the way IGF showed me. Thank you. It's good to have her as a friend.