Nothing holy about a sari

THE EDITOR: Your correspondent, Shirvani Dipnarine and company, sent me a copy of their letter to the media complaining about Belfon and the sari, about a week ago and, in a perhaps misguided attempt at intelligent discourse, I pointed out in reply, that the sari was just an item of clothing, and not sacred per se, but that if the entertainer was wearing the capra and kultur of a Hindu holy man, or the clothing and begging bowl of a holy mendicant, I would be concerned about that, just as if she was dressed as a pope, a cardinal or an archbishop. Sacred garments are sacred garments, but a sari is just a graceful garment.

Against this logic, Ms Dipnarine responded that I was a meddling bitch living in Texas and why did I not leave Trinidad alone. He sister wrote that when I ‘attack’ her sister I attack her also, and S Dipnarine further added that because of my race, I get published in the media in TT, and why did I not tell Cudjoe to “lighten up” (as I had suggested to her). I shall tell Cudjoe to lighten up and stop wearing saris, but his mailbox is full, maybe SD and her group pummelled him with many letters. The trouble about this overreacting, is that their objections have given tremendous publicity to the entertainer and her costume. When Rikki Jai wears Indian costumes, (in my mind’s eye I see him on stage in a gold costume with turban, looking like a Hindu bridegroom), and does his version of wine and grind, is he desecrating something? If so, what? The wining or the costume, and when he is singing “Rum Till Ah Die”? In a multi-cultural society, crossovers in both music and dress happen all the time. (I wear saris, shalwar kameezes, Chinese clothes and ponchos frequently.

I wear First American jewellery and bracelets made by Maharaj brothers in TT. None of which I desecrate. I just wear). Mother Teresa, a Catholic Blessed One, wore a sari on the streets of Calcutta doing some pretty dirty work, was she desecrating something holy? When she is beautified, as most Catholics are sure she will be, will there be problems with her costume being a sari on a Catholic saint? Should she be re-clothed in the garments of an Armenian nun of her period? Mother Teresa and Belfon are not in the same line of work, but neither is Indian nor Hindu. The sari is the traditional clothing of Indian women, for doing everything in India, cultivating paddy fields, picking tea leaves on plantations; dressing as a prostitute.

Indira Gandhi made it famous, and it covered her blood-splattered body on that terrible day in  1984. The Queen of England wears western clothes. She is head of the Anglican Communion worldwide. Prostitutes in the west wear the same kinds of clothes, but not a crown and sceptre. That would be obscene. I hope that this letter makes two points. That Trinbagonians, wherever they are, continue to take an intelligent interest in what is going on in their homelands, the way Britons in the far flung empire did, and still do today; and that letters to the editors are published when they are timely and make sense, and may contribute something to intelligent discussions on current issues; and not because a writer is of a particular race. This letter, if published, (and I can provide you with copies of the correspondence initiated by Ms Dipnarine), can help the letter writer on “sari” to learn that editors of newspapers, if they are worth their pay, do not allow presumptions of race to colour intelligent discussion of an issue raised in the public sphere. If it does not make the cut, your staff would still have a wider perspective on the issue.

LINDA EDWARDS
Port-of-Spain