Marathi ukhane for marriage | Funny Marathi Ukhane

Last month, the women’s endeavours earned them a mention in Indian newspapers when Kalmandhai became the country’s first “100% sanitised slum”. The locals had stopped defecating in the open, for India nothing short of a miracle. Other habits changed too. “In the past it was the job of lower castes to collect the night soil. But the ladies who run this latrine come from lots of different castes. Everybody does it,” Mrs Ilangium, a formidable matriarch in a canary yellow sari, explains, sitting next to the toilet’s entrance where the daily tallies of customers are written in a ledger.

Even with unlimited resources, the problems of sanitation in India are not going to be solved quickly. It would take a generation. But WaterAid, which has been working in India since the late 80s, is good at establishing virtuous models, run by local communities, where there is the added incentive of making a bit of money. The results from Kalmandhai, meanwhile, have been dramatic. During the past two years the number of cases of diarrhoea among children has fallen from 73% to 10%. Among adults, the figure has gone down from 20% to 10%. Families who used to spend one-third of their £30 monthly income on medicinessuddenly found that they were better off.

“I used to go to the toilet in the ditches,” Martin, a 12-year-old boy from the slum, explains. “Now I use the children’s latrine. I like the animals painted on the wall. I have only ever seen a lion in the circus.”

But the enormity of the problem facing India – a vast country in the grip of rapid and chaotic urbanisation – is hard to exaggerate. A few miles away on the banks of the sluggish Cauvery river, the inhabitants of Kosameda slum have no access to proper sanitation. Instead, they defecate on the river’s rubbish-strewn upper terraces. A few feet away, down in the bathing ghat, women wash their clothes in the same water. In the far distance, beyond the shimmering dragonflies, local youths splash in the river against a serene backdrop of palm trees. The setting is idyllic – but the reality is squalid.

“There are scarcely any fish left in the river now because of the pollution,” one woman, Vasantha, complains. “We did catch two crocodiles two weeks ago, though. We gave them to the police.”

And the problems in India go beyond the mere provision of proper sanitation. The issue of water has become intensely political in a country of a billion-plus people. A historic dispute between the state of Tamil Nadu, where Tiruchirapalli is situated, and neighbouring Karnataka erupted bitterly a few months ago. Tamil Nadu’s chief minister Jayalalithaa, accused her opposite number, S M Krishna, of deliberately withholding water from the Cauvery river, which flows through both states. Krishna refused her request for more water, and said his farmers needed it. The row has provoked numerous demonstrations in both regions, a ban by Tamil cable television operators of all channels from Karnataka, and a nine-hour hunger strike by a Tamil film star, Rajnikath. One Karnataka farmer even committed suicide. India’s central government has grudgingly tried to broker peace between both sides.

Very little water, meanwhile, is reaching Tamil Nadu. The Cauvery at Tiruchirapalli is little more than a looping trickle between gleaming mountainous sand banks. This water war follows several disastrous monsoons in India – the probable result, campaigners argue, of global warming.

Either way, the worsening drought in India makes life even more difficult for the country’s poor, some 170 million of whom don’t have access to safe water. WaterAid now hopes to extend its operations from the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Karnataka to northern India, where the problems are – if anything – even more acute. It works with more than 70 partner organisations, including, in Tiruchirapalli, the impressive Indian charity Gramalaya, which operates in 25 urban slums.A charming folktale goes “The Sari, it is said, was born on the loom of a fanciful weaver. He dreamt of Woman. The shimmer of her tears. The drape of her tumbling hair. The colors of her many moods. The softness of her touch. All these he wove together. He couldn’t stop. He wove for many yards. And when he was done, the story goes, he sat back and smiled and smiled and smiled.”

The long length of garment in rich hues weaves and warps, is just another few yards of textile, till it is draped on a woman’s body. And that is the beginning of the transformation, both for the garment and the woman. The world’s oldest surviving fashion statement, the sari first finds mention in the Vedas, the ancient wisdom of the Asian sub-continent. More than 5000 years ago it existed in a similar form and was called `cheera’, meaning covering cloth. Some people think that Indian sari is influenced by Greek or Roman toga, which can be seen on ancient Roman statues. This is not correct. Saree is essentially Indian in nature and was best suited to local climatic conditions. Cotton was cultivated in India centuries before Alexander the Great landed on the borders of India and Indian cloth was a wonder to the Greeks. In fact, Herodotus and other ancient western historians thought there were trees in India which grew cloth!

Times changed and its patterns changed too, and after many changes, evolution and styles later, it is today the primary wear of the Indian woman, and still the only wear for the rural Indian woman. More than 75% of the population of the Indian subcontinent wears the sari, in one form or the other.

The dress has survived the test of time, cultural invasions and even colonization. It is to its credit that the Muslim invasions, Europe colonization and even the recent globalization of styles, fashions and cultural ethos, have not managed to dent the authenticity, utility or the fan following of the sari. It still is considered the best dress for occasions like marriages, festivals and gifting to women, across the length and breadth of the country. Another interesting thing that is now seen is the adaptation of the sari for noveau fashion styles, even by some European fashion houses. One can understand the interest that the classically oriented French culture can have for a classically beautiful garment like the sari.

The sari, in its original form, was a single length of cloth with designs, worn pleated on the lower half of the body and draped across the upper part. It is worn in at least 10 to 15 styles throughout the India, though the ways of wearing above used to be common. In Maharashtra and North Karnataka region, wearing a nine-yard Saree (without a petticoat — long underskirt –which was superfluous) was in vogue till 20th century. In many tribal cultures of India it is still worn like that. But after the entry of Muslim and Middle Eastern influences in India, the petticoat or the undergarment covering the lower half of the body, started. The sari was fastened on this base layer, pleated to allow free movement of the legs, then the remaining garment thrown over the shoulder to drape the top.

The style of draping the sari differs between regions in India. The rural women wear it with the topmost pleat tucked into their backs, going from between the legs, and this seems to be the most comfortable style as far as hard workingwomen are concerned. The warrior queens who went to battle on horseback would wear their saris this way, so do the women who work in the fields, as hard a their men themselves, planting, hoeing and transplanting. The garment is convenient because it leaves the arms and legs free, covers the essential parts and gives a good drape too.

In other areas, styles differ, in the cities, it is worn with more style, even as a glamorous party outfit. The sari can be made to resemble shorts, trousers, flowing gown-like or convenient skirt-wise–all without a single stitch!

The textile used to make this ethereal garment boasts of real variety. From the diaphanous cottons, soft and delicate, the muslin from Dhaka, to the sturdy silks of South India, the weaves and wafts hold sway. Each region has its own special texture and design, depending on the regional crafts and the climate of that particular area. Woven silks, gauzy muslins and textured silk cottons hold sway over millions of female hearts.

The areas which are hot and humid around the year have a unique style where the upper part of the body is not restricted to any more clothing, hence the traditional mundu of South India-Kerala is comfortable for women in those sticky, long months of tropical monsoon.

The garment has undergone functional changes even if its original style has stayed. For instance, the warrior races of Northwest India, the Rajputs developed the `odhni‘, a slightly shorter garment worn over a flowing skirt and upper garment. The flowing skirt is called ghaghra and owes its origins to the gandharan garment that was wore in these regions in ancient times. The upper garment in the form of a small jacket or blouse is a Victorian addition, because when European cultures came into India, they were in the Victorian era, so even a naked ankle was scandal. For the far more open culture of India, this was difficult, but a mean had to be struck. So the sari adopted the blouse to please the colonial masters. Traditionally, Indian women wore what was called a kanchuki ( a single cloth tied across the breasts, much like a strapless bikini top), and there are many paintings and other evidences to prove this. But those were the times of the Kama Sutra, and for a culture that can come up with a treatise on sex, a revealing female garment was nothing extraordinary. In fact, prudery came to India only after the tenth century, first in the form of the Purdah with Muslim invaders, then Victorian values with the colonizers.

This ‘odhni’ should be diaphanous, soft and billowing, conceal and yet give away the curves and beauty of its wearer. In fact, that is what the sari is supposed to do, and it does its job quite well.

The Sari is perhaps the only garment in the world that can make its wearer look modest and demure while baring the midriff, outlining the hips and draping sensuously around the curve of the waist, What is revealed is much more than what is concealed, the modesty is retained and the sensuousness is effectively conveyed. What better statement of fashion does one need?<!– From http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-19-2004-50775.asp –> <!– google_ad_section_end –>

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amit narange

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