Six yards across the seven seas

My aunt was visiting us from London. We were sitting around and chatting in the night after putting the baby to sleep.

In the midst of all this conversation, my aunt's daughter, Kaveri, rings her mother on Skype. Kaveri was getting ready for an Indian themed party. And for this, she needed to wear a saree. She had started out valiantly and, like so many explorers before, got lost in all the six yards.

Such a situation called for collective action. Team Mumbai had five women across three generations. So, that would be two grannies, two mommies and one young mommy. A team, in fact, with a combined 150 years of saree wearing experience among them. And the team took it upon themselves to ensure that Kaveri would wear that red saree to the party, if that was the last thing they did. Kaveri also took a similarly inspiring oath. Do or drop out!

A lot many times such inspiration tends not to afflict that which is not human. In this case, the Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi continued on its unaffected path and refused to aid our noble cause. The feed we got was grainy and delayed. This lead to two small challenges. 

1. We couldn't tell the difference between Kaveri's red saree and the very same red petticoat since Kaveri had gone to a lot of trouble to match them. 2. Everybody screamed repeated instructions and  got frustrated that she wasn't following them. When in fact, she had already pinned it to the left 20 seconds ago!

After three unsuccessful iterations, Granny #1  graciously offered to demonstrate using the saree she was wearing. But, everybody believed their voice would be best suited to accompany the demonstration. To make matters more challenging, my mother and aunt added infectious, uncontrollable laughter to the act. They got severely ticked off by granny #1 for interfering with the proceedings and hurting the granddaughter's sentiments.

Like every child who wants to impress the adults after a goof up, my mother decided to take on the heavy mantle of leading the demonstration.   She started demonstrating using my granny as the muse. At one point, she actually sent off granny into a dizzying twirl! Granny quietly handed over the saree to my mother and ironically, within the next half of an iteration, she had found another saree, draped it and joined us back.

My mother then decided that the level needed to be upped. She decided to demonstrate herself. The problem was with the muse. It wasn't. The committee began a debate on how the petticoat could possibly be seen in the front.  Granny #2 shook her head solemnly and said, "By this age, I had two children...". My mother shot back, "She is set to become a doctor in a few months!"

Just when it seemed like the warriors were about to lay down the arms, the youngest and most inexperienced member scored a century on debut. I managed to get one round of six yards right. And raised my bat to the stands. The veterans had made too many assumptions. Novice to novice, we finally pulled it off.

 

What was achieved was truly beautiful, in the literal sense of the word. She looked every bit as gorgeous as the combined effort of five ladies. 

This was a war that left behind a beautiful picture in it's wake. We were all victors, except maybe a certain fabric which didn't wish to be tamed by mere humans. But, the humans, much to the incredulity of the stubborn fabric, conquered and lived happily ever after.