Princess Street is lined with stores selling designer clothes. Surprisingly enough – or not – the buildings themselves are dilapidated, greasy looking, as though the things inside must be gaudy and cheap. I walk in and then out, wondering if perhaps that $250 tag for that pretty white shirt was made a mistake. And quickly realise it’s a mistake all the other stores are making too.

Then there are the exotic stores. They drip culture. Their beads jangle in the sun, their bronze Buddhas gleam complacently, their signs are always bright, always themed around the jungle.
I walk into one. At the far end, a splash of pinks shines in the darkness. I catch my breath. I who hate bright prink am fingering this short wraparound. The bottom edge is lined tastefully with peacock’s “eyes.” It’s obviously been made from a sari. I know I’ll buy it someday but for now I’m just looking.

I wander the streets. I’m learning Princess Street, feeling the sun.

I return to Jungle the next day. But I don’t buy the skirt. Instead I buy a top. It fits me perfectly. My diminutive form – comparatively speaking – is flattered in the shirt made from a cloth that gives the impression of being threaded with gold. It’s decorated with paisleys, bright against the deep Oriental red.* And it is the red that labels it as exotic.
I try on the wraparound and it really is beautiful, but I put it back.
The store buys its wares from Indonesia, so says the Caucasian store girl. And I refrain from giving her a lecture on the variety in Indonesian heritage; I don’t explain to her how I know these saris. I only smile ruefully and say I feel like a sellout.

My mother was married in a red sari. I held it once, a thin crinkly cloth and was not impressed. It’s packed away far far away and occasionally I know one of my cousins “borrows” it.
I’ve never felt a compulsion to wear the shalwar kameez. If anything, I avoided them, not wanting to be branded Indian or Pakistani. Even without it, I was somehow the “Paki-wannabe.”

So for me the sari. And I feel no guilt when I consider topping a pretty kameez with jeans. That isnÂ’t my culture, so I don’t feel like I’m accepting the exoticism of it.

But the sari.

For there to be an exotic there must be a norm.
Jeans, cardigans, flares, denimn jackets aren’t exotic.

I’ve only ever worn the one sari. And ended up using safety pins (oh the blasphemy) and shuffling to avoid tripping.

Now I’m standing in front of an array of shirts brightly coloured, beautifully styled. Their textures betray their beginnings. The blonde model on the tag is all set to attend a wedding. In Lanka, it’d be silk only for occasions. But in the process of marketing a culture, subtleties are lost. So puke green is cool now.

I have never considered myself in ownership of any one culture. But I know by default I am Lankan, with a grandmother who wore saris even under her abaya in Saudi Arabia and a mother who gave them up when she moved to England.
Suddenly I am exotic. As are these stores with their reeking incense. Suddenly I can be sold.

And I stand here. And I wonder why I every time I enter these stores I’m always momentarily surprised to see a white girl behind the counter.
It’s a new colonisation. Now we are given the option of taking from our own heritage.

*(What’s an Oriental red?)
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