Free The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa Page B

excitement. She would smile, and in the end she would be quite incapable of making up her mind. She would blush and nod when the women accompanying her asked whether she wanted this sari or that, creating a lot of confusion. On certain occasions, Ramchand had also seen such girls look into the mirror with melancholic eyes, as if the
sari
was quite all right, it was the idea of this particular marriage that wasn’t so happy. This happened rarely, but when it did, it would tug terribly at Ramchand’s heart, though he would later tell himself that it must have been his imagination.
    He had seen vanity, he had seen envy, he had seen despair. He knew well the bitterness of a plain woman, who could see in the mirror that a sari could, after all, do only so much, and he could recognize the quiet, wordless triumph of the beautiful ones.
    Ramchand had also noticed that women rarely, almost never, bought saris alone. They had to be in twos and threes to be able to decide, and to derive the maximum pleasure from the process of purchasing a sari. Buying a sari wasn’t just buying a sari – it was entertainment, it was pleasure, an aesthetic experience. They would always come at least in pairs, if not in groups. Then they would talk about the sari,discuss its merits and demerits. They would make faces if they didn’t like a sari, and shake their heads ruefully at each other, quickly saying that the sari would have been all right, had it not sorely lacked a good pallu, or a better designed border, or a
slightly
different shade of colour.
    Ramchand had learnt to be patient while women talked and pored over a sari endlessly. They would peer at it closely, running their fingers lightly over the fabric, scrutinizing the pattern, as if trying to decipher faded handwriting on an old parchment.
    He had also come to recognize the covetous expression, followed by a resolute look on a woman’s face once she had decided that she
must
have a particular sari, no matter what happened.
    If the women were from the same family, family hierarchies would come into play sometimes. The eldest, usually a grandmother or a mother-in-law, would finally decide things, especially if the shopping was being done for a wedding in the family. She would make sure that nobody got saddled with the cheapest sari, lest the sari wars carry themselves dangerously into kitchens. But on the whole, women from the same families were also pretty amiable and happy while buying saris together. They would ask each other anxiously, do you remember, do I have another sari of the same colour, are you sure? They would drape saris over their shoulders, sometimes even cover their head with the pallus, and ask each other how it looked on them. It was perhaps the one time when women were at their most honest, open and sincere towards each other.
    And in every case, there would be the bargaining – the gentle bargaining that regular customers did, knowing they’d get their way eventually; the loud haggling that aggressive women did out of sheer habit, the sort that ended with headaches on both sides; the coaxing, cajoling kind of bargainingthat inexperienced customers indulged in hopefully; and the aristocratic requests that women from rich families made (please price it reasonably, they would command with an imperious wave of their hand). It happened in different forms. But it always happened.
    But today, in the drawing room of the Kapoor House, there was no bargaining and very few questions were asked. In fact, they did not even bother to ask the prices, even when he unpacked the most expensive lehngas that were available at Sevak Sari House.
    They exchanged very few words with each other, both women absorbed in picking out what they wanted. They ignored Ramchand completely. They chose expensive saris and went through the few lehngas he had brought with him without batting an eyelid and kept them aside, and carelessly tossed the ones they did not like into another pile.
    Rina picked