Saris: No Longer Under Wraps

SHE came, she saw, she wore.

Lady Gaga's maiden trip to India last October was as much about her wardrobe as her music. But instead of her usual outlandish get-ups, she appeared onstage near New Delhi in a sparkly ivory-colored sari by the Indian designer Tarun Tahiliani.

She added her own touch, of course: ripping it off to reveal a tight bodysuit, black fishnet stockings and black Louboutin boots - “to make it a little bit more New York,” she told the crowd.

Lady Gaga was on to something. Reigning Bollywood movie stars, stylish “It” girls, middle-age housewives and other fashionable women throughout India are giving the traditional sari a new look.

Last year, Sonam Kapoor, a 27-year-old Bollywood actress known for her fashion sensibility, made headlines at the when she donned a polka-dot sari with a revealing back. “Bringing sexy back,” declared Miss Malini, a popular Mumbai party blog.

Sonia Gandhi, the head of India's Congress Party who is not known for making sartorial waves, wore a bright green sari by Raw Mango, a chic New Delhi label, to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's home in July.

Whether it's a ritzy art opening, high-powered benefit or, perhaps most telling of all, a big fat Indian wedding, it's no longer uncommon to see pretty young women wearing sexier saris to accentuate their trim figures.

Energizing the sari revival are a handful of young designers in New Delhi and Mumbai, among them Masaba Gupta, Shivan & Narresh, Gaurav Gupta and Amit Aggarwal. They are reinterpreting the millennia-old garb for a new generation of stylish women.

The typical Indian sari is six yards of unstitched cloth tucked into a petticoat, with one end draped over the shoulder, according to Rta Kapur Chisti, writing in her encyclopedic book “Saris.” Worn by maharanis and maids alike, this style has not wavered, although regional variations continue to thrive. Indeed, Ms. Chisti counts at least 108 ways to drape and wear a sari.

Younger designers have abandoned these conventions and are playing with what was once sacrosanct, innovating with contemporary materials, structure and embellishments like belts and pockets.

Ms. Gupta, a 23-year-old designer from Mumbai (and daughter of an Indian television actor and a West Indies cricket captain), uses cotton prints with Pop-Art-like patterns of bulls and cameras, to create youthful looks. She also uses bold color blocking, trades the petticoat for palazzo pants and moves the pleats from the front to back.

The 20-something design duo Shivan Bhatiya and Narresh Kukreja were noticed on the New Delhi party circuit for something called a “bikini sari.” Using Lycra instead of silk or cotton, the designers sought to solve an everywoman's dilemma: how to cover up the unsightly bits while accentuating the positive. “Indian women have fuller hips and busts but smaller torsos,” Mr. Bhatiya said.

Raw Mango, under the talented Sanjay Garg, has revived interest in handwoven paisley and circular weaves from the Indian areas of Chanderi and Benares.

It helps that Bollywood glamour has turned its wattage on the sari. Until a few years ago, actors preferred Western attire, and red-carpet appearances were all about long fishtail gowns, not unlike what is worn in Los Angeles and New York. But in a dramatic shift, Bollywood actresses now regularly appear at their premieres draped in glittery and modern-looking saris.

“Saris command more respect than a gown,” said the designer Suneet Verma, who represents a more established set of Indian fashion houses, known for their elegant, richly textured saris long favored by India's upper crust.

Others designers of this ilk include Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi, with saris priced at upward of 35,000 rupees (about $650).

The new, trendier saris can be more democratic in price, some starting as low as 7,000 rupees (about $130). Saris have other benefits, too. “There's no size issue and you look taller and slimmer in a sari,” said Pernia Quereshi, a 27-year-old stylist and designer from New Delhi, who has a new online store, Pernia's Pop-Up Shop.

Like many fashionable boutiques in Mumbai and New Delhi, the online store carries an array of saris from young and more established designers in a variety of colors, fabrics and innovative cuts. There are even saris that are pre-stitched: instead of a loose cloth, these saris have pleats, over-the-shoulder drapes and pockets that are sewn into place.

The sari's allure is not limited to India. Western designers have been inspired by it through the decades. In 2011, Hermès created a limited-edited sari line in understated mousseline, cashmere and silk. Before that, Valentino flirted with saris in the 1960s, designing a sari-inspired dress for Jackie O. and, later, for Jennifer Lopez. Four years ago, Jean Paul Gaultier designed a simple, almost peasant-looking sari in shades of pumpkin and brown that seemed to reflect the economic downturn.

While traditionalists may pause at these modern interpretations, updating the ancient garment reaffirms its relevance to a younger audience.

“The sari suddenly became a super sexy garment,” said Mr. Tahiliani, the Gaga sari designer. “It gives you license to be as revealing or covered up as you want. It can inhabit your grandmother's world or the world of a Versace dress.”

Children Who Sell Themselves

September 10, 2012, 2:09 am

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Children as young as 10 had begun to directly offer themselves to traffickers because they could no longer go hungry, Sonia Faleiro wrote of children in the northern state of Bihar in The International Herald Tribune.

The author came upon the “unexpected and heartbreaking path to servitude,” which children from far-off towns and villages are being forced onto, while investigating child labor in India for a book. (Read her India Ink article on the topic.)

Recruiters from networks which hire child labor are so numerous, Ms. Faleiro wrote, that it is easy for children to approach them, sometimes even without the knowledge of their parents.

Arun Kumar, 14 , from Amni village in Bihar, was rescued by a local nonprofit organization from a rice mill in the state of Haryana. He shared his tale with the writer:

Kumar knew life in Amni had no promise, but the fact that he simply did not have enough to eat led him to seek what he called a “labor contractor.” He spoke to a few people who'd made it all the way to Haryana and back, a distance of over 22 hours by train. They were all children between the ages of 10 and 15; like him, they all believed they needed to work to survive.

“When I asked Kumar who had sent him to the mill, he said: ‘No one. I went because I wanted to.'” she wrote.

Read the full article.

Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

September 9, 2012, 9:41 am

By NIHARIKA MANDHANA

Politics and political leaders dominated the magazine covers this week. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found himself at the center of many stories that highlighted his government's predicament and his own loss of credibility. Outlook's cover carried the words “King is Singed,” a play on the title of a popular Indian movie. “Manmohan Singh's integrity was the Congress's USP in 2009,” it read. “By making the P.M. the target of the coal scam, the BJP has turned the middle-class mascot into an electoral liability ahead of 2014,” when the country will hold its next national elections.

The story quickly pivoted to the B.J.P., whose own ranks are far from corruption-free, the article said.

When a leader like Sushma Swaraj states that the Congress got ‘mota maal' (lots of cash) from coal allocations, she also opens her flanks to a counter-attack.  Which is why one must pause and ask, why has the BJP taken the pitch so high? Why has the party risked middle-class censure for further undermining an institution like Parliament? What has got them so worked up that even someone like [Arun] Jaitley - who enjoys the thrust and parry of a good parliamentary debate and usually opposes disruption - has made an argument for disorder?

The author, Saba Naqvi, attributes the B.J.P.'s tactic to “a simple political calculation” â€" “the belief that the Congress is sinking and this is the opportunity to corner it. Senior party leaders concede that the muck is also being flung at them. But they feel it is not sticking and the greater damage is being done to the Congress.”

Tehelka, too, looks at the role of the prime minister in fixing “the mess around the use of natural resources.” The article sinks its teeth into the report of a committee set up in January 2011 “to suggest changes in the legal, institutional and regulatory frameworks required to switch over to a clean and transparent system.”

The Ashok Chawla committee, which submitted its report in June last year, recommended sweeping changes in national policies surrounding minerals, coal, petroleum, natural gas, spectrum, land, water and forests, the story pointed out. The report criticized the present legislative and regulatory framework as “arbitrary, non-transparent and prone to manipulations,” and recommended a competitive bidding process for the allocation and pricing of natural resources, Tehelka wrote. “In short, it said that the regime of whimsical and discretionary powers of governments both at the Centre and states has to go,” the article said.

It went on to slam the government's di thering and flip-flops on the implementation of the report's recommendations. “One is ready to concede that Manmohan inherited bad policies, weak institutions and moribund legislations,” the writer said before asking, “But what stopped Manmohan from scrapping crooked policies and replacing them with the ones that are fair and transparent? What is stopping him from strengthening institutions and regulatory mechanisms?”

In a story titled “The Departed,” The Caravan looks at the lives â€" the aspirations and the disappointments â€" of former Kashmiri militants, who crossed over to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir as young men to receive arms training, and returned nearly two decades later to the state “they once dreamt of liberating from Indian rule.” Mehboob Geelani wrote of their disillusionment:

They find themselves back in a place they hardly recognise, transformed by decades of grinding conflict most of them did not witness. Many of the men they knew have been lowered into graves, and the simpler, even innocent, ways of life they grew up with are now long gone.