My Wedding Sari

It's every girl's dream that she look best and get the best sari for her wedding . My sister and I had been collecting pages from FEMINA and other magazines , pictures of silk saris. Between us, we had collected nearly a book's worth of pages.Be it Chennai Silks, Kumaran Silks, Nalli, Deepam Silks, Pothys, RmKV you name it, we had all their sari collection pictures. On our visits to Madras, my sis, cousin and I would walk through the streets of Usman Road and T.Nagar and browse through all the sari stores.

Once it was the sari with 50,000 different colours woven into it and another time it was the longest sari which was (RmKV silks).And in Kumaran Silks it was SunLight sensitive sari where the design in the border and pallu would turn light bluish purple. Well, i ended up buying one of this, a copper-sulphate bluish green silk sari with cream pallu and border containing the light sensitive designs.
My hunt for the perfect silk sari spanned over a couple of years, this was way before the wedding was fixed or even groom found.

All those hunts and shopping spree only added to my wedding collection but never THE ONE which i wanted to wear on D-day. After my wedding was fixed and shopping was again in full zoom, mom said" Today is a good day. Let's start now and visit the stores in M.G.Road first.Hurry up, before the Rahu kala starts". I didnt want to buy my sari in a hurry. Our first stop was Deepam Silks. As soon as we (mom,dad,sis,two aunts and I) reached the stores, my uncle and brother were waiting for us.Wedding shopping especially a sari, takes place with a whole bunch of relatives joining in.We seem to be the only(huge group) customers for the evening. All going through a dozen saris, i said to the salesperson helping us," Please dont pull down the saris for display. I will scan the piles in the shelf and ask you to display". I was feeling bad that he had to display so many saris and i didnt like any.When i didnt make much effort of asking him to show any from the set available, he said," We have another set,which has just arrived. Let me unpack them for you".I started to say No but my aunts proceeded to see them.

In the whole lot, one sari caught my eye.It was emerald green with golden border.The body was dotted with golden circles.They consisted of two sizes of concentric circles.The pallu was gold and green. Mom and I liked it but i was a little hesitant.I wanted more choice before i selected it. After the search in Deepam, we moved to Nalli silks. After seeing the overall collection, i realised my first choice was the best and unbeatable.So we hurried back to Deepam Silks to finish the purchase.

First thing on entering the mezzanine floor of the store where the last of us was seen, i see a flurry of activities. Another group of people .The same like mine, uncles, aunts, mom, dad,and ofcourse the bride-to-be. Walking to the salesperson who was helping us some time back, we ask him for the emerald colored sari."Sorry madam, the other girl has saved it for selection. They are yet to confirm on their choices".My heart skipped. My Wedding Sari.I will get it back.We waited for another hour pretending to browse through the collection. Sometime during the wait, i realised the girl was eyeing my sari, my emerald green sari. I kept praying that she has a change of heart and let go of my selection.

I was growing impatient by the minute.Towards the end of the so called good time or nalla neram of the day, mine turned good. The salesperson brought forth the sari. My dad, immediately took it to the billing counter and in a jiffy it was billed and mine.Only a second later did we realise what the salesperson had done.He had taken the sari from them on the pretext of showing it to us. I could hear the other girl and her family yelling at him.Poor guy. He ofcourse made it to my wedding :)