The Great Saree hunt!
It turns out that buying sarees is quite complicated! There are silk sarees (of first grade, second and third, which is a measure of softness; and of several different weights, such as 40g/m, 60 g/m), as well as cotton and chiffon. In Rajasthan, Georgette is also a popular material. We couldn't tell any difference from chiffon, but we were told that Georgette is "real" and chiffon is "synthetic". Some are dyed, some are tie-dyed. Some are printed, some are printed by hand with wooden blocks. Some are mill-woven; some are hand-woven. Some are woven with two different colors of thread, so that they change color as they move in the light. Some have embroidery, sometimes using silver or gold thread. Sometimes the embroidery patterns are one-sided, sometimes two. Sometimes the embroidery is very elegant, other times it resembles costume jewelry, with sequins and little mirrors. The patterns reflect the local area, with striking differences between south Indian, Varanasi , and Rajasthan styles. And of course, the prices vary from 300 Rupees ($7) to 300,000 Rupees (somewhat more than $7).
We budgeted one day to get educated and not buy anything, and then a second day to buy the sarees. That took pressure off the first day so we would really just soak up everything as we went from shop to shop. While we couldn't understand all of the local terms and had to hear some of the descriptions several times, we slowly began to understand all of the varieties, and our preferences. Surprise, we especially liked the most expensive ones!
Some things are fairly constant. Sarees are 6 meters long (nearly 20 feet), including about 1.5 meters (4 feet) at one end to cut off for making a blouse. Hmm, that is about the only thing that is constant. Except that some sarees were 5 meters and some 6.5 meters, with some having extra blouse material and some not. Well, maybe the only constant was that they were all peddled by enthusiastic salespeople!
We discovered that we particularly liked the southern Indian style, which is a bit more elegant and traditional. It would have been handy to have done our shopping while in Bangalore , especially since our Indian friends could have helped educate us and negotiate. We even considered a short (40 hour, one way) train ride down to Bangalore for a shopping day, but thought wiser.
By the end of the second day we had made three purchases, all southern style, and all quite beautiful. We were very happy with the choices. Then, with just ten more to go, we added another day to the saree hunt.
On the third day, we started to really appreciate more of the other styles as well. We could especially see some of the people back home in the different styles and started matching people to styles and colors. It was quite fun trying to imagine people in each one, thinking what highlights hair and eye color, for example, and also thinking about their personality. Those of you who asked for a saree, we hope you like your surprise! Fran and Rod formed a good team. Fran picked out most of the sarees, and Rod negotiated the prices. Of course, all of the stores are fixed price, and a few would not negotiate, but some turned out to be very flexible and we got some great deals.
We finished day three and now had a mountain of sarees. We also bought a couple of slips/petticoats and blouses for a few people that we knew would actually wear the sarees. We picked up one more on the fourth morning, and began the process of packing, writing notes, and getting ready for the post. They had to be packaged and then sewn into white bags for shipment. We hope there are no customs duties --we checked the rules at DHL, with friends who had shipped things from India before, and at the US Customs web site. We think we shipped everything correctly (no duties apply to a single gift package of under $50), with compliant individual packages consolidated into two big boxes, one for Canada and one for the USA . They're on the boat now, headed to Lucy (Fran's sister) and to Laurie (Kim's mom, Arlo's mother-in-law), who offered to accept the USA shipment and reship to everyone.
At the end of day four (remember this was going to be a two day thing?) we started out to look for the original saree --one for Fran. But we were too exhausted and headed back to the guesthouse for some tea and rest. We decide to go back again for day five!
We enjoyed shopping for sarees for everyone, but it was especially fun to shop for Fran. The salespeople always just keep pulling more and more sarees off the shelves, flinging them into the air to drift down into your lap, and the pile gets higher and higher. They quickly whisk away the ones that don't elicit a response, and present a zillion more like any that produce an "ahh!". Given that we had the whole day, we let the salespeople do the full deal, and wrapped Fran in all of her favorites in front of the mirror.
Actually, it turned out we didn't shop for long. We arrived just as the stores open (they were still sweeping and laying out the rugs), and the salesperson was very relaxed. Unlike most salespeople, he was very methodical and presented sarees at our pace, not in a rush. He also started by showing all of the major styles, then within our favorites, he showed every similar style, and then for each style we liked he showed all of the colors. There must have been thousands of sarees in neat boxes on shelves behind him, but he was able to systematically pull out just the right ones as he learned our tastes.
Except that once we had worked down to the perfect traditional South Indian Saree, Fran announced that she might instead like a Rajasthan style saree! Reset! We started again and worked our way through the assortment. She soon found a beautiful Rajasthan saree, with a delicate woven pattern, embroidery, and even some subtle jewels. While generally the elegant southern style, with exquisite silk and embroidery, is more expensive, in this case Fran fell in love with an even more expensive Rajasthan saree! But it really was spectacular. Now came the hard part --these two were very different sarees, so it was hard to choose between them.
Rod's negotiation strategy was simple. This was a fixed price shop, and the salesperson was very helpful, so beating him into submission was not an option. Instead, Rod explained that Fran really preferred the more expensive one but was about to settle for the lesser of the two based on price, and I knew that she would regret it later. I asked how close he could reduce the expensive price to the lesser, to save her the grief. He dropped a bit, but not enough. Some more friendly talking, and he headed off to call his boss on the phone for an exception. When he hit his bottom number, then I leaned forward and whispered to him: "Don't let Fran hear, but what price would you give me for both!". He dropped a bit more, I winced again, we talked some more, he dropped a bit again, I countered, and finally we settled on a price. Fran smiled!
We needed to head off to the bus directly, so Fran will get the blouses made for her sarees in a few days when we reach Dharamsala. Then we will take pictures and post them for all to see!
Jaipur
Beats me! We spent the time looking for sarees! Actually, Jaipur is an interesting blend of Rajasthan people and big-city India . The people are quite friendly, with easy smiles. Frequently, we see locals whiling the time away with each other, engaged in laughter and conversation, or with their arms around each other. They are also very helpful. When I stopped in a shop with a phone booth to call the Delhi office of Air India (yep, to change the flight), the owner pointed me to a hidden Air India office right down the street that took care of me for free.
On the other hand, Jaipur has some of the more intent touts and rickshaw drivers we have seen. We cannot walk ten feet (three meters) without getting approached. We cannot finish one sentence talking with each other on the sidewalk. Touts do not even wait until we finish talking --they just shout over the top of us "Rickshaw! Where you going! Shopping!" In Jaipur, the shopkeepers pay a commission to rickshaw drivers who bring in customers, so the drivers harangue the tourists mercilessly to drag them to the shops with the highest commissions. If you walk towards one store you will be told they are dishonest, or have poor quality or high prices, and the rickshaw driver will take you to a better shop because he is your friend and wants to help you. Yeah, right. Well actually, there are many friendly and helpful people here, so that makes it difficult to sort out the helpful ones from the touts, and also makes it important that we not just harden too much and blow everyone off.
Jaipur also has more than its share of children beggars. There really aren't that many beggars in total, it is just that most of the beggars are children and that is so disturbing. Adults are just behind the scenes or around the corners, or often nowhere to be seen. We have been in India for six months and we still are not used to the beggars.
The Weld
Our camp stove broke. At a critical point near the gas nozzle, a weld failed. Probably it got bumped one time too many in hauling the packs around. I disassembled the stove to see what repair I might affect, but it was clear that a weld was required. Also, it needed to be a high temperature weld to some special high-temperature metal that housed the nozzle, and yet it needed to be delicate enough to not ruin the nozzle just 1-cm (0.4-inch) away. I knew where a district with auto repairmen was, and figured there would be welders there. I hoped I could find a skilled one, who knew about high-temperature metals and welds.
I posed the problem to a very friendly old cycle-rickshaw driver that we had met the day before. He immediately understood and walked me through a maze of auto parts, repair shops, bicycle tire repairmen and tea stalls to a welding shop. No one there spoke much English, so I explained the operation of the stove with pantomime.
It turns out that the stove is a bit tricky to understand. It folds up for small storage when packed, and the weld was along one of the axis of rotation. It needed to be done just right to open and close properly. I showed the way the stove opens and closes and five guys huddled around the stove poking and prodding until they thought they had figured it out. Soon they were fashioning a custom little sleeve to slide one rod through, so that the burner would rotate along the sleeve. I explained again, and this time they understood that just one little weld in the right place would make the magical contraption work properly. They set out to figure out how to hold the two pieces at just the right angle, and started welding. After about fifteen minutes of starting and stopping (that's a very long time for a weld, and I was getting worried about the amount of heat going into the nozzle), they were done. But in testing it with a gentle tug, the weld immediately broke apart. That special metal was something unique, and the normal flux and solder would not fuse to it.
They huddled together again to talk it through. Then one guy announced that I should take it to the Asfhlklsdj shop at Asmurti gate. I couldn't make out the name of the shop, so asked them to write it down. After they handed me a paper and pen to write it down, I understood that they didn't know how to write in English, and I couldn't understand the Hindu name well enough to even attempt a spelling. So instead, one fellow pulled his motor scooter in from the alley, I hoped on and we were off.
We raced up and down the back alleys for a few minutes and then arrived in an area full of even more repair shops. This however was SERIOUS repair-land. The guys were clearly mechanics through-and-through. We stopped in front of the Guru of Welding (that's my name for him, I couldn't read the Hindu sign).
You have to picture this guy. You know how Asian people can sit? With their feet flat on the ground, they just squat their rear down until it sits on their heals, with their knees tucked against their chest or to the side. Their legs go to sleep and they can just sit that way for long periods of time. In the absence of chairs it actually isn't a bad way to sit, and we have learned to sit this way at least for a little while. Well, a few seconds anyway.
The Guru of Welding sat Asian-style at the edge of the cobblestone and dirt alley, with an anvil and a few tools in front of him. He was an enormous guy with a huge belly that protruded through the opening between his shirt and pants. He had stringy hair and a straggly beard (beards are unusual in India , except for the Sadus). His shirt hadn't been washed in forever, and I couldn't tell if it was a plaid or solid.
The scooter driver took the stove part over to the Guru and explained the problem. The Guru hardly said a word. Without moving a muscle, he directed his assistants to set up the piece and hold it in the right position. They floundered for a while and he sat silent. When they finally had it just right, he lifted his torch to the side for an assistant to light, dipped a special bronze colored rod into flux and started the weld. In under a minute, he was done. He held the torch to the side again and an assistant shut off the gas. The Guru remained still, motionless, still squatting with the enormous belly. He clearly was the master, and did absolutely nothing except the welding. All of the underlings in the city brought him the tough jobs. He knew exactly what he was doing, used the right materials, and had a perfect weld. I was thrilled!
Back at the guesthouse, I tested the stove and it works great! The excess heat of the first welding attempt didn't seem to cause any problems. And I got to meet the Guru of Welding!
No comments:
Post a Comment