The sari

True to an old promise, we will discuss today the sari, the traditional garment used by millions of women in South Asia. We will review your history and traditional styles, but: "Readers who only want to know how to wear a sari, you can download directly to the end of the text, where a step-by-step." And the rest, let us to the point:

Concept. A sari is a colorful female attire prevailing in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of a long strip of fabric without stitching, ranging from four to nine meters in length and fits the body of the carrier according to different uses and styles. The most common way to wear a sari is wrapped around the waist women for one end, while the other edge passes over the shoulder, the stomach exposed.

Women usually get the subcontinent over the sari blouse called choli small or Ravika. The choli has short sleeves, low neck cut is presented to help women to withstand the harsh summer in southern Asia. The heat is such that in some places, like the region of Orissa , women's breasts are coated directly with the fabric of the sari. The cholis may not cover the back and are of varied thickness. They come equipped with a variety of reasons, such as mirrors, and ornate designs when compared to Western clothes. The sari is a garment common to all India.

Origin and history. The word 'sari' evolved from the Prakrit word (derived from Sanskrit) "sattika" mentioned in the early Jain and Buddhist literature.

India's textile history traces the origins of the sari in the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished no less than between 2,800 and 1,800 BC in the western part of the continent, part of the territory currently occupied by Pakistan. The first known representation of the sari is a statue of a priestess of the Indus Valley, dressed in a cloth.

Old Tamil poems like Kadambari Silappadhikaram or describe sexy women dressed in saris. In Indian classical tradition and under the treaty Natya Shastra (which describes the classical dance and costumes), the navel of the Supreme Being is considered the source of life and creativity, and so the sari must leave the stomach bare.

Some historians believe that the dhoti dress, a kind of shell pants garment and the oldest India, is the forerunner of the sari. Although today is only a guy thing, until the fourteenth century was worn by both sexes equally.

Still preserved sculptures of the Gandhara school, Mathura and Gupta (I-VI centuries AD) that show goddesses and dancers showing what appears to be a dhoti in wide release, covering the legs widely and then floats to make a long and decorative fold ahead of them. The bra is not visible.

Other sources maintain that everyday clothes consisted of a dhoti, combined a chest strap and a film that could be used to cover the upper body or head. It still exists in Kerala (South India) a similar pledge.

What is generally accepted, without exception, is that related to the sari costumes, shawls and veils have been worn by Indian women in its current form for hundreds of years.

But controversy persists about the choli or blouse and undergarments. Some researchers believe that these components did not exist before the arrival of British India, and think they were introduced to satisfy the conservative Victorian idea of modesty and decency. What they say is that once women only wore the cloth, and left exposed breasts and upper body.

Although some historians have examples to refute this version, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (south) and Orissa (East) is still possible to see some examples of this practice. And classic poetic texts indicate that during the sangam period, one piece of cloth used to cover both the lower body and head, so the stomach and breasts were in the air.

Styles sari. The most common way to wear a sari is wrapped around the waist, and then take the loose end of the fabric up to slide it over his shoulder, but the air leaving the stomach. Although the sari can be dressed in different ways, some of which require a particular form or fabric length. Thus, experts categorize the style Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, the Dravida, the madisara, the Kodagu, the Gond tribal or styles. But the most popular of them all is the style "nivi" from the region of Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India.

The fabric nivi begins with one end of the sari tucked in their belts. The fabric is wrapped once in the lower body, and then attached in folds in front of the navel. The upper end of the folds also be inserted through the part of the waist belt. This creates a very decorative, that Indian poets in the past compared with the petals of a flower. The tutorial provided at the end of the article follows this style.

After further rotation around the waist, the loose end is passed over her shoulder. This end is called the pallu or pallav. We must pass diagonally across the torso. It has crossed from the right hip to left shoulder, so that the stomach is partially visible. The navel can be hidden or view depending on the preference of the wearer. The long end of the pallu coming to the back is often highly decorated. The pallu hanging freely or can be be used to cover the head, or just the neck, passing it the right shoulder.

This style was popularized by the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, which modified the southern style. In one of his paintings, the Indian subcontinent was depicted as a woman wearing a sari-style ethereal nivi.

The sari as a garment. In the past, saris were of silk or cotton. The rich could afford finely-woven embroidery, diaphanous silk saris that, according to folklore, could pass through an annular ring. The poor wore cotton saris, fabrics page. They were all handmade, and represented a considerable outlay of time and money.

The simplest of saris village are often decorated with lines sewn into the fabric. The cheap saris were also treated with block printing using wood, dried plants or ironed. The most expensive ornaments or brocade are geometric, floral and figurative as part of the fabric. Sometimes the strings are pressed and then tissues. Sometimes, the yarns of different colors were woven into an ornamented edge, a developed pallu and often small repeated accents in the fabric. For elite saris, these patterns could be sewn with threads of gold or silver, style "zari".

Sometimes the saris were further decorated with various types of embroidery, either colored silk (resham), or threads of silver, gold or gems (zardozi). The cheap versions of the wires used Zardozi synthetic and imitation stones, such as fake pearls and Swarovski crystals.

In modern times, saris are woven in machine mechanics and are made of artificial fibers such as polyester or nylon, which does not require ironing. Machine printed or stitched with simple patterns made with floats in the back of the sari. This can create an elaborate appearance on the front, but ugly in the rear.

Naturally, the saris made ​​and decorated by hand are much more expensive than the machine imitations. Although they are losing market share rapidly, hand saris are still popular for weddings and social occasions.

How to wear a sari. Here, I provide the details to wear a saree step by step, following the style nivi. Naturally, the fundamental condition is to have one (although I know cases of hard-liners who mounted it with a curtain), and is also very useful to run the steps in front of a mirror. I hope you serve. Voilà.

1. Wear a skirt false. Hold firmly the top of the fabric (the inside) around your waist.

2. Wrap the sari waist and firmly puts the top of the fabric (again, on the inside) by the false waist skirt.

3. Adjust the fabric around your waist while keeping the same height, and on reaching the front, the corresponding subject of the sari at the waist of the skirt false.

4. Starting from the right, fold the left as necessary the excess fabric past the navel.

5. Ask how many folds you think necessary, but usually their number between seven and twelve.

6. Grab all at once and folds in the same way, and adjusts the height above the ground so that this match the rest of the fabric.

7. Put the top of the pleats in the skirt to hold them false, and goes back again for the remaining fabric.

8. Making available the rest of the fabric with your right hand and pass it to the left.

9. Hold the cloth well with your left hand and makes the necessary adjustments in the pallu with the right.

10. Lower your left shoulder pallu of her sari to pass naturally to the back. You can use a safety pin to prevent movement. And enjoy.

Then you can a video in English with a practical demonstration of the steps described above. I hope this information has been helpful.

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Caste and color in urban India

As cities become the cultural centrality of Indian civilization, the caste lost its dominance, more solidly grounded in rural India. In big cities or Euro-American-Indian, everyday personal contacts are much more flexible and less identity. With just a visual or a brief exchange transaction services, there is no way to assign one person to the Rajput caste, however powerful was his sense of belonging or my desire to find out. The breed is mark ethnic and operates as a magma gaps than linguistic, regional and in some cases, religious and labor. So be diluted when no longer useful. But this truth, intuitively if not for the signs a significant proportion of Indian sociologists, does not mean that inequality will disappear and, at a stroke.

In recent years, the Indian elite is proudly that their purchasing power and culture has shortened the distance to the West. And in a sense, are right: in urban India is much more effective instrument of class as social segregation (if I heard Lenin!), The traditional cleavage between rich and poor, more attentive to the disquisitions of pocket Cradle consumption and chivalry. I checked this fully in the festival last Dashera, advocacy of good over evil. Each year, the authority of the neighborhood assembled a makeshift stage, with hundreds of chairs and three gigantic terrace hell big heads that will direct the pyre faller after the god Ram concrete victory over the demon Ravana.

The sum of theatrical performance, religious paraphernalia and final burning of the lousy, the result is the typical human flood that colors every religious festival in India. But this time he had guards watching over and selectively requiring an alleged free ticket. This I knew then, I spent the makeshift barrier without knowing anything about history. Seeing how organized the respectable, I began to understand that what was happening: the park was full of "kameez" silk jeans and young children with a maid. And against the fence, huddled struggling to see something the caste of servants, the noisy teenagers with loud clothes, the fabric saris bad, or people with hair repeinada apegotado bathing in tubs without shampoo bottle.

The guards, rather than organizing access, were separating the wheat from the chaff, India that demand for which has not, under the guise of a ticket to me or asked me because there was. Is that you do not have bad pint , a neighbor came to me with an argument of joint night. This is India, my son. It is true that the waiting time, the alert guardian relaxed and more alert kids managed, one way or another (scaling gate, the guard despistando) enter the park and join the fun, without the right to chair. But by then, I had forgotten the god Ram and I was busy watching the servants Ram and Sita Prasad, New Delhi.

The Ram and Sita who would own the words of Balram, the driver of the novel awarded the British Booker "White Tiger", referring to the jersey of his boss: "It was not like the shirt I would buy in a store. Most of it was empty and white, and had a small design in the center. I would have bought something very colorful, with lots of words and designs on it. More value for your money. " A white tigers are known for their ornate designs clothing lines unequivocal turbulent low price, and also for darker skin, working in full sun, used as errand boys, drivers, cleaners. In all cases, with salaries that cause embarrassment and a life which only rarely rises above the standard of dignity.

The first historical mention of the castes or varnas ("colors") is paramount in the mythical "Rig Veda", songs with more than 3,000 years. But in India today in northern cities, the gap is not varna visual but mostly clothing and sun, depending on the soft skin well worth the higher social classes, there are bleaching creams in each toilet for this fight constant, and the complexion of the people Agromán salary below 100 euros, which is so prohibited from entering the shopping mall as the mention of its existence in India of the "success story", ie the version that elites strive to sell abroad and thus to be taken seriously in international forums.

"In India, 'said the other day the sociologist Dipankar Gupta - the rich depend on the poor. They could not live on their level without them. Take for example the field of information technology, supposedly a success story. They themselves admit that their profits come from the low labor costs, and based on no technical training tasks. I know big spenders are two dollar tip the hotel porter while angry when a servant asked a small increase. "

Propaganda campaigns and corporate mantra books aside, here are the details: According to World Bank (2005), 41.6 percent of Indians live on less than $ 1.25 a day international poverty line (according to the indicator Indian national, the percentage drops to 27.5 percent). The figures are alarming, but there are two clauses that put them. The first is to live with more than $ 1.25 a day does not mean that you live comfortably. If we put the limit at $ 2 a day, it appears that 75.6 percent of India's population is not exceeded: this means that in India, 800 million people live on less than two dollars a day. The "great indian middle class" (great Indian middle class) is less great in a society where only 3 percent of the population owns a car.

The second point concerns the Indian model. As Gupta himself recalls in his book "The caged phoenix", this way of measuring poverty is a sad understatement, because what makes the line is if people can buy enough food to ensure their own survival. This means that 27.5 percent of the population unable to arrive at the amount fixed by the standard is not alone in poverty, but of actual starvation. That is, for better or worse, hungry.

In the city, although shelter from fourth world, the situation is not as dramatic and urgent as in impoverished rural areas. The bulk of the Indian growth in the years it has been postreforma the top of the pyramid, ie manufacturing and services sector. But this does not mean that the urban poor are not subjected to a brutal drama. In full Dashera party knew very illustrative of the history of one of the ironing of the neighborhood was lucky or unlucky enough to give birth to a girl with very light skin, a feature much appreciated-a light-skinned girls are they presuppose a future husband better positioned and more social consideration than its neighbor kidnapped her and tried to snatch it, until the police intervened to bring peace and nothing else.

Tion to something else: just days after the party in the park, I had occasion to witness what kind of plague afflicting the police. It was night market and a walking patrol agents stationed along the stalls, specializing in the fireworks of Diwali (the festival of lights). At ten pm, closing time, is engaged in a whispered discussion among vendors, all women, in a coming and going quietly agitated and one of the officers, quietly supported on a pole beside the road. "We asked, told me one of them-500 rupees to let us continue another hour of sale." True to the reputation police crushing the poor, the main victims of corruption and paying bribes, one passed a bill in the pocket of the policeman, named Bhardwaj (as plaque), the end of the other survivor.

The power of the agents of neighborhood-tanned in the sun, to be exact-reached people of the neighborhood: the police do not ever speak in the same way to the white tigers subjected to daily wage than their masters. Rich and poor are closely connected, but social segregation is the gauge that separates the citizen of the subject, true that the occasional parentheses elections: some out of the malls, the others remain faithful can not choose-their dusty "dhabas" of teas to five rupees.

A large country-be indignant scholars rightly, is much more than the class gap is reduced to a simplistic dichotomy of rich and poor. Okay, the reason of wealth inequality explains only a part of India, but is of fundamental importance: the castes, religions, languages, operating regional bickering within India and founded the organization in the country. Also the classes but also add that to the outside are the wealthy, among those who has the very powerful diaspora who act as ambassadors of the country because their habits are closer to the West manage the strategy of its national narrative.

Let me explain with an example: shortly after arriving in India, I caught the abracadabrismos of the Anglophone press, which they use (use) the West to take the pulse of the country. On the street, I saw streams of people struggling for survival, the constant recourse to the tricks of Lazarillo de Tormes. But the media were far more occupied customary events taking place in the cavalcade, yesterday won the cricket world, today we reached the moon , everyone admires the power of India, poverty-that-is lacking invented by Pakistan to destabilize the country. Then I realized the trick: to many readers (readers elite, which are expressed in English), poverty has become part of the props, is a landscape element with which one has coexisting ("closely connected" ) from birth, and therefore generally not material-news. What you need to tell, come to say, is that India is already a success story.

The great paradox of the Indian elite in this regard is that, while practicing a savage social dumping within its borders and take advantage of low costs of the maid of the kitchen and the buttons of the company, try to mute or turn down the noise of its existence and that of the hundreds of millions of poor who are still in the country. The minister of Interior-before-Finance, Palaniappan Chidambaram, came to juggling to say that India is a poor country but a country in which "the bulk of the population is poor." He also said-I agree that if the administration added to 200 or 300 million people are in production, the country's gross domestic product will shoot. The dilemma is whether to do so the authorities will start sending tickets to white tigers for the upcoming theatrical feature. Because until now, the best way they can still enjoy the servants of the party is pulling the Diwali firecrackers purchased by the master, his heir to have fun safely.

The first Bible adapted to India is selling "divinely"

New Delhi, July 11, 2008. - A virgin Mary in sari with the mark of "bindi" on the forehead, a St. Joseph in a turban and a baby Jesus wrapped in Indian costumes are some suggestive pictures of the first Bible adapted to the public India, in an attempt to get closer "to the culture of the people."
The adapted version of the book, edited by Paulina Society of India, has caused a furor in the country where "you are selling divinely," said Efe's father Stephen, who runs the bookstore Pauline Delhi.
In fact, the first edition of this "Indian Bible" is nearly exhausted, having sold 13,000 copies in just two weeks since its launch.
"Our purpose was to present a Bible reference, but adapted to the Indian reality. The Bible is always the Bible, but needed to adapt to our context, "he told Efe by telephone spokesman for the Archdiocese of Bombay, Anthony Charanghat.
"Any communication works best when using the language of the people," he added.
The edition, in English, consists of 2,288 pages of fine paper in gold thread with a simple language, peppered notes footnotes and words of the Hindu tradition, though their leaders deny any attempt to proselytize.
"The authors have tried to keep the book in simple language devoid of jargon. They wanted to adapt it and so have included the Sanskrit terms like "Atma" (spirit), "bhakti" (devotion), "janam '(birth) or" bhagwan "(God)," said Father Stephen.
The work, which the father sold today were a teacher Teresa, costs 250 rupees (5.8 dollars), the usual price of English novels in bookstores delhíes.
The highlight of the Bible india are his illustrations, fifteen images with classical types of India: women adorned with rich traditional jewelry, turbaned farmers or covered by the short called "dhoti" and old praying that seek to bring the reader to his reality.
"Christ is born in a portal, but here is best understood if we put in a hut surrounded by skyscrapers, because so many people born in India today. They are symbolic designs, "said archdiocese spokesman.
Religious leaders took their idea of several holy books existing in Africa and the Philippines, but focused on giving their own touch version has been a labor of seventeen years, according to Father Stephen and bookseller.
In its composition have been implicated theologians, writers, scholars and artists ready to bring the public the traditional language of India, a country where 38 percent of the population can neither read nor write.
Although its purpose is to also reach non-Christian readers, the Bible society of Paul's main objective is to Catholics, more than 17 million people (in a population of nearly 1,200 million) concentrated mainly in the south and Northeast.
"This Bible is made ​​in India for India. I am sure that will bring us closer to millions of our people, not just Christians, "he said in a statement the Archbishop of Bombay, Cardinal Oswald Thanks.
According to Christian tradition of India, missionary activity began with the Apostle Thomas in 52, and centuries later rebounded with the arrival of Portuguese sailors, who settled in the southwestern shores.
In many cases, voluntary or forced-converts-kept their previous traditions: painted Christ as an Indian saint, they welcomed the priests with Hindu ceremonies or festivities held previous beliefs, such as Diwali and Hindu New Year.
The new Bible "desi" ("native"), which will be released again in October, now takes its language and illustrations that important syncretic tradition of the Indian subcontinent.

The rickshaw

Babytai, 16 years
Nizamuddin-Sadar Bazar route

I hid next to the station.
A fourth wall consumed
sheets with holes butts
and a water bowl on the table.

Outside, the tremendous noise.

The trains, people, traffic.
Someone moaned in the next room.
I thought the rough men and their companions.
Their brightly colored saris
and his long lips.
At the reception repeating: shhh.
And touched a bell.
But do not ask anyone.
They did not ask my name.
They pressed their lips
to fill with lipstick.
And smiled to take the money.
I thought running was this.
...
Now they will marry.