Learning to dress

I received an invitation to an event this weekend that called for formal or Indian dress. I thought it would be a perfect excuse to finally wear the sari that I had bought at the beginning of the year and has been laying folded in my closet since then. But how? How was I to get this three meters of fabric wrapped around my body? Wrapped so that it would not fall off, and would look *something* like what it is supposed to (I suppose perfect it too much to ask of a foreigner!). Luckily my maid Mrs. Kaur was at my house Saturday morning. I asked her to help me learn what I was doing. Thirty minutes later I was laughing in amusement, but fairly sure that I would be able to wrap myself up reasonably well that evening. To begin with she had me put on the petticoat, an integral part of the outfit as it actually holds the entire thing up, tucking the first round into the waistline, tugging all over to get it to hang straight, just barely brushing the floor. A lot more adjustment, some discussion as to how I wanted the end to drape, and she continued to even things out. Working from both sides she gathered the excess material in the front, carefully folding seven pleats into the fabric then tucking those into the front. With four adjustments to the folds over my shoulder I was starting to wonder how in the world I would ever get it put back on four hours later. Luckily she had a plan. A couple of safety pins held both sets of pleats in place, an extra one lower down would keep them from falling out until I was dressed later. Then it all came off and I tried to replicate the look. The first attempt wasn't so good! I got a couple of reminders and took it back off to try again. We didn't stop until I passed Mrs. Kaur's inspection. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but she decided it would be good enough. Then she reminded me to add a few safety pins in key spots to hold everything in place and let me take it all off. I guess she tutored me well and I got several compliments from the Indian women at our event, goodness knows I couldn't have done it without her! I can't say a sari would ever become my daily outfit, but I did feel very elegant in it, even if it was a bit like playing dress up.