Dear White Boy
Jan 5, 2009
The other day, for the second time in my life, I wore a sari. The first time had been for a fashion show in grade seven. I told people I was representing Sri Lanka, but really when it came down to it, I was representing all browns, given how often I got the response, “No, you’re not. That place doesn’t exist. I’ve never heard of it,” to my answer to the question, “Where are you from.”
Funny how that worked, when so much of Saudi Arabia’s most impoverished workforce is Sri Lankan, the housemaids and the drivers and the street sweepers and the construction workers. The people who die on their jobs, who don’t get paid.
A Bengali friend brought in a sari she’d borrowed from her mother (I hadn’t told my own mother about the show or my part in it, knowing what her response would have been – what nonsense is this) and wrapped it around me as best her thirteen-year-old hands could manage. Then I walked to the washroom to check the mirror, and it unravelled in the process, so the Somali sisters helped me put it back on, now with the aid of a thousand pins, though I suspect their sari-tying judgement may have been biased somewhat in favor of guntiinos. By the time I manged to get on stage, I was fervently grateful for the skirt I had on under the sari, because my stint as a runway model at an all-girls’ school was threatening to turn into the world’s most unfortunate striptease.
So the other day, I wore a sari. And I wore a pottu and there was even jewelry in my hair. Then I looked at myself and I couldn’t recognise the woman in the mirror. Whoever she was, she was beautiful.
“Would you wear a sari to your wedding?” asked Geetha. “What if he’s a white guy?”
8 Responses to “Dear White Boy”
1 hala Jan 6, 2009
ahaha, i believe i emceed that fashion show. in a dress.
2 baji Jan 6, 2009
the saris of yesterday could befuddle anyone, let alone a 13 year old girl going solo. today, you can get a cheater version that has the pleats already sewn in, a hook to secure it, and all you have to do is sweep the remainder of the fabric over your shoulder and go.
i wore a lengha to my wedding to a white boy and a sari to my sister’s wedding to a white boy (not the same white boy as the formerly mentioned white boy). no complaints and no regrets. if you look beautiful in it, or, more importantly, feel beautiful in it, i say, ‘rock the sari!’
3 fathima Jan 6, 2009
hala,
i don’t remember this. were we not friends then? i do remember my cousin (kg? grade 1?) was in the audience. “omg i saw you!” “no you didn’t. that wasn’t me. pff.”
like there weren’t only two lankans in the school.
baji,
i would rock them more often, if i, you know, owned one. or didn’t feel like such a faker in them.
i think it’s impossible to look (unless you were the world’s ugliest 12yo (see above)) or feel ugly in a sari.
4 adnan. Jan 6, 2009
you’ll do fine without the sari and pottu too.
5 sophister Jan 6, 2009
I wore a sari one ti…. wait never mind.
6 Geetha Jan 6, 2009
I continued this conversation: “You look like those book covers you detest” and a grim hoarse chuckle exited from one Fatima Cader’s lips.
7 hala Jan 7, 2009
how do you not remember? you made fun of my dress, bitch.
8 fathima Jan 7, 2009
yo, what was the less offensive word for ‘dada’? i remember mrs. asma once (rightly) giving us shit for it.