The sari with the fringe on top

[baroque_mongoose]

Before I get into the body of this post, a very brief update: I've spoken to quite a number of people about my decision, and all of them bar one are fully convinced that I'm doing exactly the right thing. That one person is Athos. Athos is a very fine bloke, but he's also not a Christian, so inevitably he doesn't fully understand my perspective; it's also true to say that, while he fully acknowledges and sympathises with the fact that I found my childhood extremely painful, he hesitates to call it abuse. He prefers to think of it in terms of my parents being very old-fashioned... which, indeed, they were, but that's by no means the full story. There were many periods of history in which children were devalued (and we have ancient books of terrible parenting advice, at least one of which pretty much boils down to "all right, it's fine to love your children, but just don't make that obvious to them in any way"); even so, I know of no period of history where it was common practice to submit your children to a constant barrage of opprobrium, sarcasm, and contempt. That, honestly, has always been abuse, whatever period of history you lived in.

As a somewhat relevant aside, I recall, as a child, reading the part of the Bible where the children come running to Jesus and the disciples try to stop them. You can just hear them now, can't you? "Go away - don't bother the Rabbi; he's far too important to have time for the likes of you." And Jesus isn't having any of that. He welcomes the children. He makes a point of doing so. He is happy to give them time, and to bless them. And whenever I read that, I always used to think, "Jesus was such a wonderful person, but he'd have been in so much trouble with my parents for doing that. They'd have been so angry they'd probably even have told him off in front of his disciples, for giving children the idea that they were of any importance."

And now I look back and think: yes, he would. And I'd have really enjoyed seeing how he dealt with it. That is not how I actually became a Christian, but I do remember thinking even then that I'd rather follow Jesus than my parents. Why wouldn't anyone, in the situation I was in? And, although I didn't become a Christian till my early teens, I'm pretty sure it happened because God took that thought at the time and said "yes, you do get the choice to do that".

Anyway. What I really want to talk about today is formal dress.

Some people seem to have a natural talent for it. Porthos is one of them. Even when he was basically a friendly blimp, he was still capable of looking effortlessly well turned out, and now that he's lost so much weight he's even more dapper. He has always been able to rock a fancy waistcoat; I was a little afraid that losing weight would compromise that somewhat (a bold design does well on a large canvas), but no, he's still doing that with aplomb. Both d'Artagnan and I, however, are honestly pretty hopeless with formal dress; in my case that's not usually a big deal, but of course poor old d'Artagnan is supposed to look shevelled and kempt for anything up to three hours on stage (one of the Bach Passions, for instance, when more often than not he's singing the Evangelist, so he's kind of conspicuous). Neither of us has any trouble looking nicely put together the moment we've finished assembling ourselves; no, the problem is staying that way. Either of us could pretty much rumple a suit of full plate armour.

It has to be said that by the time d'Artagnan has been on stage for ten minutes he's usually starting to deteriorate sartorially, but by that point it doesn't really matter because he's also started singing. And once most people hear that, they're not going to care if he's wearing an old sack tied up with a bit of rope, frankly. Not having the voice of an angel myself, I had to find a different solution; and I did. It was called a sari.

Saris are wonderful. The thing is, in India, everything is going to crease no matter what, so what you do is you go in for clothing whose elegance doesn't depend on not getting creased. The sari is a superb example of this. They are also, despite the standard Western perception, actually not hard to wear.

The secret of any sari is the petticoat underneath; this is what holds it in place. (I always had large pockets put into mine, because you obviously can't put them in the sari itself.) You take the plain end of the sari, wrap it around yourself, pleat it fairly heavily at the front, and then tuck all the pleats into the top of the petticoat. Then you drape the fancy end, which is called the pallu, over your shoulder. Saris are traditionally worn either alone (in cultures which are relaxed about occasional boobs appearing) or, more commonly, over a very cropped top in fabric that matches the sari. However, you can wear them over anything, and I've never been one for very cropped tops, so I generally wore mine over a blouse or a jumper, depending on the weather. At one concert, which was in Den Haag, I discovered another great thing about saris; I happened to be wearing a particularly flimsy one (you can do this, because your petticoat and other under-layers are completely opaque), and when I got out of the concert it was pouring with rain. I got back to my hotel soaking wet, took off the sari, hung it over the shower rail... and it was dry the next morning, so I could pack it. It wasn't even especially warm.

Well... you can wear a sari in a wheelchair, but it is likely to be awkward, so I don't these days; on the other hand, one also rumples less (certainly less obviously - I will still get rumpled about the seat due to sitting down, but nobody is going to notice that because ordinarily I won't be standing up), so it's a trade-off. For the last concert I made a magnificent maxi skirt.

I've yet to see d'Artagnan appearing on stage in an embroidered kurti, but I'm not entirely going to rule it out!