Treasured wisdom

humour

“I was happy when my daughter had landed a good job, and was glad when she indulged herself with saris, but not anymore,” a neighbour confided, during one of our afternoon gossip sessions with a group of women. Reason was not far to seek. The present generation of women have a tendency to splurge on clothing of all variety, saris, most of all, since they are the costliest of the group considering the most important accoutrements — matching blouse, sari fall, and of course, the net for protecting the zari of the pallu.

“In our days, we had only three blouses for all the saris — one white, one black, and another one of red or yellow,” she exclaimed, exasperated. “We never bothered about matching everything. But girls these days refuse to even cross the threshold of their homes if the blouse is a shade different to the saree. And the time and energy they spend on picking out the right blouse piece is a cause for concern.

More so since they don’t while away so much time in choosing the sari. And don’t get me started on the escalating tailoring charges taken for stitching each blouse and the sari fall. Our mothers and grandmothers would have been horrified if they were alive now. They always insisted on spending money on gold instead of clothes. Gold and land should always be preserved, they would advice us.”

“That’s sound advice,” I agreed, ruminating over the way the elders quietly accumulated gold by making it a silent condition to buy at least half a tola every month. As such, even the middleclass had gold to spare when the daughters reached a marriageable age. No, they did not spend much on clothes. Usually, one had a maximum of six saris. Three that were set aside for special occasions, two for daily wear, and one for a rainy day. But nowadays? Women easily own somewhere around 60 to 600 saris!

“My ajji had only three saris,” she said. As though following her train of thoughts, neighbour’s granny decided to take part in the conversation. “One on the body, another on the galu, (a big thick rod fixed above for hanging clothes) and another in madipettige (special box of cane kept for religious functions). And blouses? Only three — a silk one to go with the sari in the madipettige, and two stitched in thick khaddar-like cotton for daily use,” the elderly woman exclaimed with great pride.

She added saying, “My grandmother would not allow anybody to come near her pettige, claiming it would pollute her ‘madi’. We could touch it only after she passed away. And when the pettige was broken open, quite a good amount of pure gold was found stitched into the linings of the sanctimonious box. More than sufficient to give us, daughters, all lined up for marriage. My parents could find no words to thank that clever soul!” All chorused, “We should all be more like her.”

“By the way,” one of the women echoed the thought of others, “would she have parted with the gold while alive? I mean, all that gold, during the marriage of the granddaughters?”

“No way,” came the shocking rejoinder. “It was her security, not only for old age, but also for the sacred religious death rites. She knew the ways of the world and human failings well to trust her sons.”

“Truly, the old of those days had a solid mental frame and much more common sense and foresight than us of this generation, enamoured of glamour.” Did the younger generation overhearing our conversation agree, albeit silently?