Myths

I am a big fan of Paula Begoun who runs Cosmeticscop on Web. I think she is a lone crusader against the myths propagated by the owners and marketing departments of cosmetic industries which have entrenched in people's psyche as 'ultimate researched truth'.
What people forget is that Real Science which leads to drugs, molecules and techniques which can improve life is very much there and its slow.There are studies published - 90% of them are not tainted in spite of corruption in annals of science.

For people who are interested, read this article- 20 beauty myths .
If you want to really critically analyse , just type 'Pubmed' in google and when you enter Pubmed ,enter the studies she has cited under each myth. Read those research articles. or abstracts. And then decide for yourself....Do you want to blindly believe in sales girls and advertising and pay hundreds of rupees for useless products or do you want to make informed choices every single time and force the cosmetic industries to actually give a good product at a very good price...and then they may not have to spend lacs on advertising !

Cosmetic industries make huge profits on medioacre products and products where the raw material costs are paltry eg  lip balms [ they give just 4 gm of product  !] shampoos,conditioners and body lotions and inspite of that they mis-sell  and spread lies which get ingrained in the minds of misinformed !

I would love to know what you think about this .

Shopping

X called me up the other day and said she had a shopping voucher from her measly company  which required her to go shopping.
I asked her what did her shopping voucher amount to . She hatefully blurted "thousand bucks".
Me : Your company pulled out all the stops this year ,huh ! How thoughtful....now you'll spend another 2-3k to spend that voucher?

X : HR in my company is Ivy league that's why they come up with these measly feel-good gestures......they are real talent.[she added sarcastically] Anyway, i wanted to buy some clothes  and probably some make up. Coming?

"When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking." - Elayne Boosler.

 Yeah, but that doesn't mean Men are less of shoppers than women.They just pretend to be not interested in shopping and then go out and buy a bombastic gadget which will make them feel and behave like a 5 year old.

Now, Pune is covered with malls these days.Infact, if i stand on X's terrace and throw a stone ..it'll land up in a mall. So we go to the latest malls- Phoenix and Inorbit which are neighbors.
My shopping experience in malls is limited to make up ,leggings and well a skirt. Most of the kurtas don't fit me and the one's that do fit are horridly expensive. For those people who know my sewing prowess, i calculate why these brands are ripping me off for a simple cotton kurta which will not last a single home laundry. X knows this and she still takes me along !

Phoenix and Inorbit have these stand alone brand shops..so while i window shop and swallow looking at the prices , X impatiently rummages the racks.We enter a shop where ambience is cold and floor empty. She picks up one kurta and shows it to me.

"Omg...its 1299 ! But you can wear it... see if you like",I giggle uncontrollably. The sales girl hovering around us glares at me.

Sales people have found new way of selling stuff at these hi-fi places: Look over the customer, make her uncomfortable if she hands over the garment wordlessly after trying it, glare at her if she checks prices before checking out the garment and lastly snobbishly answer her queries with every bit of lies they can come up with .

X looks at me and says : "its very similar to the kurta you are wearing. How much did you get it for ?

Me: Let me see,...2.25 mtr cloth at 80 rs per metre and i cut and sewed it in 2 days -with all the embellishment it cost me 200 bucks. 5 washes - as good as new"

X put the kurta down angrily and then went over to the western clothing racks.

X : Gosh.......how did the prices get so high ! Last time i went shopping and actually bought something ....remember that blue top ..it cost me 450 of this very brand. Now look at this simple top - starting upwards of 699 !

Me: [ i knew the prices had increased almost insensibly since i had been making more mall visits than her since last 8 months ] yep, i know...now just a branded jeans and top combo will set you back by 2-3k. Start taking care of your clothes, X .Soon, they'll become investments like gold !

X: [nodded ruefully] Yeah ,i already kicked out that maid .She managed to ruin our clothes while washing them in a  washing machine ! I wash stuff myself now....handwashing the ones which leach colours like crazy.

Me: You know what a price of the garments of these so called brands goes like : Rs 699 + 100 -for first time dry cleaning which  practically all the brands exhort you to do]. The price is exclusive of shrinkage, loss of color and durability of the cloth in first wash itself. If you do the math ,all that these brands are doing is recovering real estate and staff prices and their huge profit margins for very poor quality.

X: Oh yeah....i remember when we were kids ..my mom used to get our frocks stitched and they used to last forever. There were no washing machines....the maids used to wash and i remember my mom not letting them use brush except on collars and painchas ! And now within a year these ready-mades look old.

X pulled me out of the store and said ..."We'll go to the cloth market in camp and city ..i 'll pick up some material ..babban chacha still stitches . i'll ask him to make  kurtas and then mix and match with leggings i already have.You'll embellish them ,will you ?..please ...

Me : yeah ok . Maybe i'll stitch a kurta too for you . However, what will happen to the voucher ?

X: I will give it to my arch enemy !

Destiny

Sometimes X and me sit on the steps leading to Big Bazaar - the one near my house.In the background there is huge cacophony of traffic which irritates me while exhilarating X. I used to sit many times with my mom there.She used to get tired standing because after her chemotherapy  her knees and legs gave her pain .The pill Altraz she was on had among other side effects - leaching bones of calcium. So , invariably when i used to coax her during the 10 months after chemo and radiation but before the cancer came back in her brain, mom sat outside at those steps  while I finished buying groceries at the store.

So, now I coax X to sit with me - i still don't like the noise and all that vigorous honking but she seems to enjoy it while i reminisce about Mom. I miss her terribly and after her i don't think i'll miss anyone else so much. X and me are both losers however in different ways [she is going to kill me , I know, for saying this] . I believe however there are more losers walking around than truly content and happy people with everything going for them .. ..infact there are few people who have probably been just tapped lightly on the head by Life and not smacked or tossed around like a football ! X and me both have had hard lives from last 10 years.And both of us blame it on Fate or destiny !

X : Gosh ! whatever did we do to end up alone like this i mean we are 33 and not getting anywhere.I feel so lonely at times i wish my 6 year relationship had never ended !
Me: May be we should start new habits ! How about social drinking?
X: Social drinking ? Where ? We have no social life to speak of? Its difficult to even make new friends at this age ? Where have all the people gone ?

Me: I wish your relationship had ended earlier ...less pain ! 6 years and it went nowhere ! And about people ,...they are all married ! Married people have to compulsorily socialize with each other especially married indian girls. Most husbands don't like their wives spending time with their friends ...or so the women think ! Married people hang out with married people usually!

X : Why ?
Me: Its maths , i think.Things are easier to add up when couples hang out together.
X:[ sits thinking while  i wonder why do we end up talking all this crap]  There are only so many mall visits one can make. It stinks to be single middle class Indian girl ![she concluded... and sighed]

Me: Yes..i have been saying this all this time...and thats the only reason i want to get married !I mean if i find some one to just hang out or go on vacations with i'll think i have hit jackpot !
X: That's all ! That low your expectations are ? you want a touring companion ? What about love ? [she looked at me...wide eyed aghast!]

Me: Oh ...lot of my expectations have been silted and washed away by incoming tides through all these years ...is that so bad ? What's wrong with a touring companion ? I want to go and see the world and India which i can't do now alone. Its no fun alone for me .I guess i am not built that way. And love? Maybe its not for me...i have come to accept it.Anyway, if it had to happen it would have happened a long time ago.

X : [rolled her eyes at me and sighed ] yeah maybe...we don't even have ways to meet anyone anymore ..most of the guys on the market are either divorced or with kids.
Me: Oh..we might not even have kids to baulk at ..you know...its a possibility the biological clock ...
X: [she sighed even louder] yep...gosh its scary....are we destined to die unloved, alone and without progeny ?

Me: I hope not...i i desperately hope we don't die alone ..unloved because we are quite loving people ![ i tried to cheer her up]

X : Do you believe we are at fault? Do we make our own destiny ?

Me : [ i thought hard and put my arm around her to console and pacify her while i fought back my tears] If you had asked me 10 years ago...i 'd have said ..yes -we make our own destiny ! Not anymore !  I think...we can just clear the path ...you know..pick the weeds out,plant some seeds ..hoping they survive and grow into strong plants and trees and fill the path with beauty and fragrance. But the path ...where it leads and goes is beyond us.Where the path is destined to end and branch out is in some Superpower's hands',.....there is Someone out there who is pulling the strings and spoiling all our plans, X !

Snip snip !

I have grown up wearing exquisitely stitched salwar kameez,frocks ,jumpers,skirts and what not simply because my mom used to stitch my clothes and my sisters'. When i was growing up there were no malls ...there were shops one went to buy the frocks and baba suits for children.Women usually bought material at mill stores -atleast that's what my mom did and gave it for stitching.Darzis were carefully chosen and good ones were stuck to. The quality for darzis were honesty and thriftiness in using the cloth and most women at that time had compulsory 'sewing ' class either at home or at schools.My mother of course went a step ahead primarily because she had 3 daughters to swathe elegantly. i don't ever remember my mom buying"salwar kameez sets". These sets which contain dupattas,kurta and bottom materials were unheard...instead people mix- matched and bought material at the shops and they scoured for matching dupattas .In doing so people usually bought only required material depending on the length and type of kurta or salwar they wanted.
Nowadays, the sets offer huge advantages..first you don't have to scour for matching dupattas.secondly the darzi cannot cheat you and ask for more material incase you are tall.For short people it doesnt matter because darzis have a field day because lot of material is left behind after he stitches and gives you the salwar kameez

Unfortunately nowadays, many women don't have any sense of material,or cloth requirement so they buy whatever the darzi says instead of doing mental calculations of their own. Here is the general rule of the thumb: if you are 5ft to 5.5 ft,wear a salwar of length-40-41" and kurta of 38" or less- you just need 2 mtrs for kurta ,2 mtrs for salwar of panna 42-45" i.e width of the cloth material.

The panna of cloth especially doesn't matter in kurtas because of the styles that are worn these days...sleeveless,halter necks and short sleeves. I'm 5ft 8" tall so i easily stitch  my salwar in 2 mtrs and churidar in 2.25 mtrs, kurtas in 2- 2.25 mtrs depending on length i want 40-43". I have got my salwar kameez stitched from tailors when i didn't know stitching and mom couldn't do it anymore- they never made the length of the kurta more than 43-45" [the time i'm talking about is when long slit kurtas with churidars were in fashion] and made piddly churidars from the sets though the salwars made were good.
Here are few tips i 'd like to share:
1. If you don't know stitching here is important things to look for in a darzi these days: your height has got nothing to do with cloth requirement when you buy standard salwar kameez sets ie. 2.25 -2.5 mtrs top,2-2.25 bottom and dupatta.If you are below 5.5 ft and thin ask your darzi to give you remaining cloth back especially if you have got a plain kurta and salwar stitched. Usually in these sets the panna of cloth is 42-46" ,the whole length wise cloth band remains after stitching if the darzi has folded and cut the kurta properly. Don't expect much from bottom part of the material set. If you have a hobby you can use the cloth and you can also use it to rafu /repair your dress in case they are get torn accidentally.

2.Ask the darzi to keep silai so that you can alter the dress if you put on weight
3. When you are testing a new darzi,check his stitching,salwar and churidar that he makes. A salwar should not ride up your thighs when you walk or sit with folded legs,the paincha [bottom part] of salwar should not be too wide nor too narrow.The fall of the salwar when you wear it should be perfect. Its meant to be loose and flowing and width [gher] as much as possible.
A churidar has to have 'chudis'. the chudidar is cut on diagonal fold of cloth so ideally its going to have joints.A smart darzi will and can add joints so that as much 'chudis' can be made and joints will not be seen too.

4. And most importantly- a good efficient darzi never ever spoils your clothes. If its a fitting problem take it back to the darzi and tell him, he can alter it.If he makes your kurta extremely tight don't go back to him at all with a second order.
5. Nowadays darzis charge price depending on locality they are sitting in and not according to their skill so your job of finding a good and reasonable skillful darzi is even more difficult.

Lastly, i wholly recommend learning basic hand stitching,repairing your clothes .Its one skill which is worth it.You don't depend for alterations on a tailor.It saves your time. Believe me,If there is extra silai on sides of the kurta you can rip it open and make space to accommodate a few extra inches in case you have put on weight or vice versa when you want to wear it . You will not have to wait and make a trip to the tailor for something as small as that. You can handstitch - you may find it difficult to believe in this age of sewing machines but neat handstiching is strong !
So, you cannot excuse yourself from repairing clothes because you do not have a sewing machine !

Sewing came to my rescue. Its destressing ,challenging and its one skill where if you do it again and again you only become better. Its my mom's greatest gift to me.In 3 years i have learnt from books, from mom and my aunt and now i can make salwar kameez, saree blouses, churidars,pillow covers ,curtains. Sometimes, hours pass by while I'm concentrating on a particular pattern making. I have now moved on from basic kurta and now i try to create patterns, piping, necklines and yokes.Sewing is an endless art - your creativity is your limit.

Herbal fantasy !

A cautionary tale