This story has a lot of background so first let me just give that. The snap that you see above is of a marathi group dance performed for the Diwali function held on our campus. Over 500 guests are invited for this dhamakedaar fun filled four hours event.
So we decided to dance on a medley of "Galyant Sankli" from
DHKMN and
"Aika Dajiba". The dance steps were all peppy involving a lot of hip shaking and facial muscle exercises. The challenge of this dance was to figure out a appropriate outfit. Now since the dances were typical marathi numbers it was obvious we need to dress up in the Navari saree style.
The first thing I did was to look for some Indians on campus who know how to tie this saree, but it seemed pointless. So I began my next hunt on our dear google.com, but google seems to have never heard of it or rather the searches proved quite useless. The next keyword was "Marathi Saree tie" - nothing useful.
Wikipedia had huge amount of distracting info but nothing on how to tie this particular style. I must have tried for almost thirty minutes when I stumbled on this
link.
Now the amazing thing is this woman is teaching the "Vijayanagar" style which remotely resembles the Navari so I thought what the heck let me just learn this one up. It looks simple enough I thought, I was half way through when I gave up on her instructions and just did a shortcut to reach my own version of a Navari.
Anyway the dance group was happy , we had an easy way to look like typical marathi women and it seemed robust enough to survive our dance jhatkas and matkas, so the above picture is a proof of the fact that we managed to get through the entire dance without any mishaps.
So after the dance is all done and we are happily celebrating in the changing room , this girl from Mumbai ( a marathi) walks upto me and comments on how authentic the saree looked and information on who tied the saree. So I supply her with the help that I learnt it from internet. She is dumb struck for a few seconds and then compliments me on my expertise and requests to be taught later.
Now its my turn to be dumb struck, I mean this is what I am thinking , I am a Malayalee (from God's own country) born in Ajmer (Rajasthan) and then brought for most part of my life in Bangalore. Here I am already a confused desi and then I learn this shorcut Navari saree from the internet from a woman who does not even look Indian and then a Marathi actually claims that I am an expert !!!! Hilarious
This happens only in US !
So me is an expert , bole to maaf karo bhai !
This is taken in a coffee shop at the Singapore Airport. It was one of best experiences I have had. I had a stop over for eight hours and instead of taking the usual free ride, I decided to go out into the city alone in the typical hitchhiker's style - a map and a backpack. It was fun and I felt a little adventurous for a few hours.
