A stitch in another time

This lockdown has become an opportunity for us to relish in nostalgia. I too slipped into a reverie, remembering my school and college days when I was studying at Vittal, a small town in Dakshina Kannada. Branded, readymade dresses were not very accessible then. Most people would get their dresses stitched. To attract customers, tailors used to advertise that they were ‘Bombay Tailors’ below their shop name. We would throng to such tailors, as they were known to stitch fashionable dresses. Those days, Bombay (now Mumbai) was the first choice for all unemployed youth and as everyone remembers, it was known as the fashion capital of the country. Similarly, even Mangalore was known to be fashionable and people would say whatever new fashion arrived in Bombay, in 24 hours the same would land in Mangalore. Incidentally, the bus journey from Bombay to Mangalore would take only 24 hours.

Such tailoring shops provided employment to no less than 7-8 youths, and most of the time they would be school dropouts. In a tailoring shop, the owner would only take measurements. The employees would busy themselves in cutting cloth, stitching, fixing buttons, ironing and so on. It was not uncommon for these tailors would often extend the deadline, saying, ”it's ready, only the button is to be fixed!"

I remember the sound of rotation that a number of sewing machines made, it was worth listening to. In between the tailors would often put oil, change the thread and continue.

My friends and I used to visit tailoring shops daily, befriending tailors, and would read various daily newspapers to see which movie was running in which theatre. On Fridays and Sundays, we used to feast on film advertisements. Not that we were not browsing through the other pages. In fact, we also used to read in detail about Sunny Gavaskar’s batting or Kapil Dev’s heroic efforts. The tailors would also often switch on transistors, which was a source of daily news, film songs and cricket commentary. We used to listen to it with rapt attention. Now every shop has a portable TV, and one can often hear ‘breaking news’.

These days, I have not come across boards of any Bombay Tailors. With the advent of internet, and other quick media, is there any need to depend on Mumbai returned tailors for the latest fashion?