{"id":53,"date":"2010-03-03T12:05:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T12:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html"},"modified":"2010-03-03T12:05:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T12:05:48","slug":"a-sari-state-of-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html","title":{"rendered":"A Sari State of Affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>I remember attending a sort of “Hindu pride” class as a pre-teen<\/strike> tween, and being taught the glories of all things Indian (or “Vedic” as our teacher would say).  “Vedic clothes” — dhoti<\/i> for the males and sari<\/i> for the females — “are simple, clean, modest, and chaste,” our teacher told us about our dress-codes.<\/p>\n

Modest? Chaste? Was he kidding? He obviously wasn’t contemplating the mysterious female form draped in that slinky, satiny cloth the same way I was. Moreover, he seemed to have missed the fact that the sari produced the holy grail for hormone-raging 12-year-old boys: the exposed midriff.  <\/p>\n

I distinctly remember a few Diwali evenings spent sneaking furtive and lusty glances over at the teenage girls decked out in their navel-showing finest.<\/p>\n

I also remember feigning disinterest in Bollywood dance numbers with heroines gyrating in rain-soaked saris, only to go back and rewind the video cassettes to ogle those very dance sequences when my parents weren’t home. Particularly memorable (and scandalous) were Mandakaini’s infamous white sari waterfall scene<\/a> in Ram Teri Ganga Mali<\/i>, Raveena Tandon’s rainy day<\/a> in Mohra<\/i>, and Sridevi’s sari-clad dalliance<\/a> with an invisible man in Mr. India<\/i>.<\/p>\n

(Okay, okay… fine. Check out the whole collection, here<\/a> in CNN Go’s round-up of “Sexy Sari Moments.”<\/a> See, it wasn’t just me.)<\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve come to realize that the sari could be scandalous or pious, sexy or sophisticated, chaste or to-be-chased, based on who’s wearing it, and how.<\/p>\n

Case in point: Elizabeth Hurley’s recent wardrobe malfunction involving a sheer sari and nothing on underneath<\/b>.<\/p>\n

\"ELIZABETH-HURLEY-SARI.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Reports the Wall Street Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n

… nothing showed more of Hurley’s cross-cultural fashion sense-or
\nmore of the actress herself-than the sari in which she showed up to the
\nLove Ball fundraiser in London on Wednesday night. Donning a very sheer
\nand see-through black outfit, Hurley did not think it necessary to wear
\na choli<\/i>, or cropped blouse, which is customarily worn under the sari.
\nShe also didn’t wear a bra, so photographs of Hurley from that night
\nleave very little to the imagination. The outfit is sparking serious
\nsartorial questions: is Hurley a global style pioneer or an
\ninternational fashion bandit?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n


\nCross-cultural fashion sense? More like nonsense. I’m going to have to call this as I see it: a
\ncheap, tasteless publicity stunt. She knew exactly what she was doing: turning nine meters of cloth into a way of grabbing headlines. <\/p>\n

\"hurley-wedding_mag.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>For starters, Liz is no novice to the sari. The fellow on her arm is her husband, Indian textile heir Arun Nayar. The two were wed in a Hindu ceremony in 2007, where the blushing bride proudly (and beautifully) wore a sari. And she
\nwas famously photographed in a sari with Gwyneth Paltrow and Elton John for the
\nBreast Cancer Research Foundation’s “Hottest Pink Party Ever” in 2008.<\/p>\n

Liz knows<\/i> how a sari is worn. And if she had any doubt, she could have asked hubby Arun. “Sweetie, am I forgetting something, here? Could you give me your expert opinion on this… you know, especially since you are Indian<\/i>, and run a textile<\/i> company and all.”<\/p>\n

To be fair, it is possible that the nature of the sari’s fabric made it look one way at home, and another under the glare of a paparazzi’s flashbulb. But as a celebrity used to attending showbiz parties, shouldn’t she have been aware of the revealing glare of the camera flash?<\/p>\n

And the question still remains: why in the world would she not where anything — not the traditional choli<\/i> blouse, not even a bra — under a light wrap of cloth? <\/p>\n

Of course, some of the media have rushed to Hurley’s aid to answer this rather simple question with an unexpected answer: Liz is just keeping it real, bringing the sari back to its (supposed) roots. Here’s the WSJ again<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But even sans choli<\/i>, Hurley has gotten support from many Indian
\ndesigners and journalists for her fashion selections. The Daily Mail in
\nMumbai says: “By contemporary Indian standards, [wearing a sari without
\na choli] is unthinkable. But it would seem, at the very least, Hurley
\nhas history on her side.” The Daily Mail goes on to say that the choli<\/i>
\nwas non-existent in India before the British arrived. In fact, it was
\nVictorian ideas of modesty that led to its invention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Um, right. Even if one accepts the (highly debatable) idea that the choli<\/i> was a British import and that Indian women traditionally went commndo, are we seriously to believe that Liz has been boning up on her pre-colonial Indian history? And that she intentionally renounced her choli<\/i> to kick off some retro-Vedic equivalent of the bra burning movement? Really? <\/p>\n

Do I think that Liz’s choice was deliberate? Definitely. Do I think that it was an affront to Hinduism or Indian culture? Maybe. Or maybe just poor taste in general. In using a sari — a garment that will forever be linked to India’s culture and traditions — as a prop in her little stunt, she cheapened it and degraded it. But no more so, I might add, than the Bollywood starlets dancing in the rain (or, more aptly, the male audiences whose ticket revenues drive them to do so).<\/p>\n

I think Liz ought to say  sa– er, sorry, and let us all move on. I, for one, am getting pretty tired of focusing this much energy on the image of a sari-clad choli-less attention-seeking celebrity. <\/p>\n

Of course, I’ll be the first to admit that I probably would’ve felt quite differently when I was 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember attending a sort of “Hindu pride” class as a pre-teen tween, and being taught the glories of all things Indian (or “Vedic” as our teacher would say).  “Vedic clothes” — dhoti for the males and sari for the females — “are simple, clean, modest, and chaste,” our teacher told us about our dress-codes.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-day-in-the-life","category-humor","category-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA Sari State of Affairs - Om Sweet Om<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Sari State of Affairs - Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I remember attending a sort of “Hindu pride” class as a pre-teen tween, and being taught the glories of all things Indian (or “Vedic” as our teacher would say).  “Vedic clothes” — dhoti for the males and sari for the females — “are simple, clean, modest, and chaste,” our teacher told us about our dress-codes.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-03T12:05:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady-thumb-150x210-11952.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Vineet Chander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Sari State of Affairs - Om Sweet Om","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Sari State of Affairs - Om Sweet Om","og_description":"I remember attending a sort of “Hindu pride” class as a pre-teen tween, and being taught the glories of all things Indian (or “Vedic” as our teacher would say).  “Vedic clothes” — dhoti for the males and sari for the females — “are simple, clean, modest, and chaste,” our teacher told us about our dress-codes.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html","og_site_name":"Om Sweet Om","article_published_time":"2010-03-03T12:05:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady-thumb-150x210-11952.jpg"}],"author":"Vineet Chander","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html","name":"A Sari State of Affairs - Om Sweet Om","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady-thumb-150x210-11952.jpg","datePublished":"2010-03-03T12:05:48+00:00","dateModified":"2010-03-03T12:05:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/cf2056f344b6fa435169a0edd9e93d8b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady-thumb-150x210-11952.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/assets_c\/2010\/03\/Ravi_Varma-North_Indian_lady-thumb-150x210-11952.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/03\/a-sari-state-of-affairs.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Sari State of Affairs"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/","name":"Om Sweet Om","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Sheetal Shah","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/cf2056f344b6fa435169a0edd9e93d8b","name":"Vineet Chander","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/221\/221efe0b0631084cd4843bb843427584x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/221\/221efe0b0631084cd4843bb843427584x96.jpg","caption":"Vineet Chander"},"description":"Vineet Chander is a legal and communications consultant, writer, and teacher, specializing in the Hindu diaspora community. He is a Hindu Chaplain and the Coordinator for Hindu Life at Princeton University, and serves as the North American Director of Communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a worldwide organization representing the Vaishnava Hindu tradition. In previous incarnations, Vineet has been a New York City prosecutor, a cable TV show host, and a hospital chaplain. In his free time, he enjoys relaxing with his wife and his new baby, attending classes at The Bhakti Center, and teaching himself photography. As a second-generation, Indian-American, Vaishnava-Hindu, Vineet ponders new ways of further hyphenating his identity.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/vchander"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}