IN PURSUIT OF A GOOD BLOUSE TAILOR

Last week, when Barack Obama and his wife visited India to be a part of our Republic Day parade, rumours had it that Mr.Narendra Modi might gift 100 Benarasi sarees to the first lady as a gesture of goodwill. Now this way of tightening cross border friendship deeply troubled me because our Prime Minister failed to answer one important thing, ‘Where will Michelle Obama find a good Blouse tailor?’

Once a girl reaches the threshold of womanhood, she begins to understand that she can no longer inveigle herself into believing that her T-shirt can make up for a saree blouse. It is then that she begins her pursuit to find the one who understands her enough to wondrously stitch out the perfect saree blouse and mind you, a good blouse tailor is not an easy catch.

If you think about it, blouse making shouldn’t be an arduous task. You provide the tailor with the matching piece of cloth which you spent hours to select, leaving you wish that you were colour blind and all he has to do is stitch out a decent blouse by following your measurements. You even ignore it when the tailors, irrespective of the gender, use more of their hands and less of the measuring tape to chalk down your size. You brave it all, just for that one perfect blouse. The result is almost always, disappointing.

My first blouse tailor was obsessed with Egypt. Why else would he stitch out a blouse that made it look like I had pyramids built on my chest? Another tailor made a blouse so tight that I began to think that I had deceived puberty and was continuing to be flat-chested. The tailor I went to get a blouse stitched for my college farewell ardently took down all the measurements and promised to not disappoint me like the others did. Interestingly, I attended the farewell wearing a blouse that resembled a shirt because the tailor didn’t want to upset my family by cutting my back low. Then there was this particular tailor who added pads inside my blouse and his reasoning was a classic “Medem, aapke wo jo haina, wo kaafi nahi hai.” Sleepless nights were spent considering a boob job.

Now it is a universal fact that all women secretly hate each other. There is this woman my mother is friends with whose blouses are so perfect that you might doubt if they were pasted on her. Others including my mother would regularly swarm around her encouraging her to divulge the name and whereabouts of her tailor. Her answer was always, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.” Such a bitch!

Recently, I happened to come across this particular guy who ran a small tailoring shop named ‘OOH LA LAAA’ near my brother’s school. I wonder what might have been the reason behind me choosing him. May be it was the proximity to my place or the fact that he was ready to first stitch a trial blouse to clear my confusion. I was sold! After a week of questioning my patience, this gem of a guy gifted me a blouse that made me wonder if he knew my proportions better than me.  I had finally struck gold after going through so much dirt.

A woman’s relationship with her blouse tailor is unique. He knows what she means when she requires a Vidya Balan style blouse, or when she says “Bhaiyya front deep chahiye. But not that deep ok?”. He knows the contours of her upper body better than her boy friend and he is ready to make alterations to her heart’s desire. He is true to his words when he says he will give her the blouse on Saturday and he never messes with her cup size. He knows when she has gained a couple of kilos and silently increases the length of the blouse to cover up her peeping back tire. He should be declared an Indian Super hero.

I wore my new tailor’s creation to a wedding recently. A friend asked, “Kahan se silwaya?”. I flushed a bit, looked at mother while replying, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.”

I blame it on Muliebrity!

P.S- I am not dead. :)