The point about the sari, said Leigh to me, is that the feet are not seen. Leigh was an old and dear Canadian friend who happened to be passing through Bangalore. One could not blame her for romanticising the sari.

Oh-ho, I thought to myself: just take a look at my domestic worker. She hitches up her sari here and there until it becomes a skirt mid-calf in length. And what, after all, was the “traditional” garment of the southern Indian woman? I should think, going by temple sculpture and historic frescoes, that it would have been an ankle-length “wrap” or wrap-around skirt — somewhat like the one worn by women in Indonesian lands even today.

When did the sari evolve to resemble the present-day garment, I wondered. Going by ancient Indian depictions, the sari as draped over one shoulder is a few centuries old. Frescoes at the excavated city of Pompeii also show women dressed in a similar fashion. Did the Indian sari influence the Graeco-Roman world, or was it the other way round? This is a question for scholars and historians.

What I do know, however, is that the sari is a fine garment to wear, utterly beautiful and elegant, if one is going to be carried around on these streets in a palanquin borne by four hefty bodyguards. For one thing, a bodyguard is always a good idea; for another, one should think more than twice before putting one’s foot down on some streets hereabouts!

Another old friend put it succinctly when she said, “Well, this is India.” She was a surgeon, no less, and wore the sari because it was “expected” of her. She declared that she would be far more comfortable in other garments for work.

“It is the hem that goes first, but the rest of the garment is quite good,” declared another lady who specialised in converting her worn saris into other types of clothing for herself and her children. This, to me, is the point exactly. Wear the sari day in and day out, while walking along streets that are none-too-clean or riding on grimy buses, and the hem goes. I wore the sari religiously as a post-graduate student through two snowy winters in the USA, decades ago; and ruined several saris in the process.

In sum, it is good to wear the sari and glide along, feet unseen. The hem will remain pristine and clean without picking up barrels of soot, dust and dirt. But there is one catch: your feet must remain above the mere earth.