Come on, let us wear ... ...
Right from birth
A human is born naked, but what he/she wears throughout the lifetime is astonishing to notify, if it is thought about who we were ,our ancestors were and what was the lifestyle centuries ago.
The wearing items range from diaper to name tags, tie to shoes, jewellery to winter clothes and waist belt to contact lenses. Innumerable and uncountable varieties and variations.
There is a quote that, you are never fully dressed unless you wear a smile. But, I don't go with that. There are times you do not have to wear a smile.
In this post, I write about some dresses, ornaments and decorative items that gave some memories. Surely the dressings thought about brings the memories of occasions and the people associated with those occasions. Ok,
come on, let us wear .......
Let us enter into the shop .... ...
The dresses that were remembered enjoyed were skirts and blouses. Of course the initial dresses worn would be small frocks and others, that no baby would remember, and my mother had kept a red colour frock of mine in a metal trunk box.I too kept dresses of my daughters' and used to put them on the life- size doll 'Booma', the doll mentioned in the post 'Bommaigal', in my first book.
We used to buy running cloths and then stitch them. The famous cotton variety at that time was , 'English சீட்டி ( cheeti')- how to spell?, which is a cotton cloth thicker than normal seetti or cheetti. The floral patterns and designs would be of eye catching colours. These cloths are used to stitch skirts and two by two or tericotton type without design plain cloths were bought for stitching blouses. Almost all the long blouses were having hooks at the back and my mum used to hook them on. The hand patterns were either normally straight or having gatherings at the shoulder, called as 'puff hand' (பஃப் கை). Initially we used to wear short skirts as young children and long skirts upto ankle later on as we grew up. Still can recollect how the skirts and blouses looked, felt,smelled and how we looked in them .
Wearing the school uniform gives a unique feeling. Or you can call it as a uniform feeling, a feeling of all belonging together. And for people like me, who want to be together but unable to voice it out, uniform gives you many people. And also it fulfils the student feeling. Some may not like school or wearing uniform, but I love it. Want to be a listener and watcher with ears and eyes always meaning remaining a student all the time.
Next to mention is the half- saree, known as 'dhavani', two meters length cloth, worn around the skirt and wrapped over the blouse from oneside waist to the otherside shoulder and hanging free from that shoulder down at the back. To describe it looks complicated, but it is easy to wear. Just a tuck and just a sweep. My father bought a rose colour netted half saree from Coimbatore. I used to wrap that around while going to Madarasa for learning Kur-an, even when small.
In our school, Friday is no uniform day. Gils will come with varieties and colours of skirts, blouses and half- sarees, looking like butterflies.
After entering college, the white coat worn right from the first year , continuing wearing for many decades makes feel comfortable and proud.
And now, comes the Sarees, our traditional wear, which are beautiful on any woman. Especially the silk sarees, which give a celebration look. Even the first saree bought for me was a silk saree, violet blue in colour. Till now, sarees are special, even though difficult to wear now-a- days, because of aging and sickness.
Previously all dresses other than skirts , half- sarees and sarees are named as 'modern dresses '. Now-a- days it is not the same, because all so called modern dresses like pant shirts, churidhars, gowns etc are being worn left and right and now cannot be called as 'modern dresses'. During Goa tour from college, bought dresses for my sister and me- silk like churi- which we both wore and enjoyed, neck chain and hat.
Jewellery:-
These range from diamond, gold, precious stones to gold covering, plastic and other materials. Infact the diamond stones are fixed on 18 carat gold. As we all know carat is the measurement of purity of gold in 24 parts of gold and another metal- usually copper combination. Pure gold is of 24 carat and it can not be made into jewellery.
There is a baby photo of mine, in which I was made wearing a chain and a finger ring. And that particular ring was missed - stolen . And my mother told that there was a neighbour family and they only stole it . Since I was a baby , I don't remember the faces, but I remember the names said by mother later on. And after decades, came to know from the area Whats App group that they got a prize in lottery and built a house. Something clicks, isn't not? Once somebody does a misdeed, the repetition is not a surprise.
The first ear jewel was worn, at the time of ear pricking. That had a beautiful blue stone, set in the middle of a golden star. When I grew up, during my early adulthood, wanted to buy stone necklace with red and green coloured stones. But, that did not happen, even though I bought a coral ( precious stone) set that is orange red in colour and even though looks beautiful it wont glitter like artificial stones. Anyhow, I bought green stones set, not made of 22 carat gold but of 1 gram gold. It is interesting to know about one gram gold jewellery. This means the piece of jewel is gold plated, the quantity of gold being one gram and the rest is of some other material , mostly copper or alloy. And it has a re-sale value also. Only this green stone set and one long white stone haaram (long chain) are of one gram gold. All of my other jewellery are gold and diamond.
The first necklace bought has purple coloured stones. A pair of purple stone jimikki (ear wear), and a big purple - violet finger ring. ( I read that Napoleon's favourite colour is violet ). After many years my niece Basariya told that she remembered me at the time of marriage, wearing that necklace with beautiful stones. I have not seen any purple stoned gold jewellery after that. But, I bought a saphire ( precious ) stone set, the colour is not saphire blue which I had in mind, but darker blue.
The jewels bought in Saudi Arabia are almost without stones, except two ear drops and finger rings. As mentioned in my second book (Away from India - part ), used to buy and wear the jewels while coming to India. Gives nice feeling.
Bought one diamond necklace and ear drops as a set and one diamond ring later on. Diamond purchase to be stopped with these. My plan.
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