"I’ll put a gold border and give it some pleats. We can also add a few cut-outs on the sleeve, but that will be another 30 rupees.” These are routine conversations Sharada Makwana has with her clients — some of whom, she says, can be quite particular about the length of the sleeve, the kind of lace and the weight of tassels attached to the strings that tie up the daring low-back saree blouses.
“I can also make flowers with the cloth and add them on as embellishments,” she says, proud of her skills, and then she goes on to show us just how she does it. Sharada and other local saree blouse tailors like her are the women’s favourite fashion advisors in Kushalgarh. After all, almost all young girls and women of all ages who wear sarees need that 80 cm piece of cloth to be tailored just so.
In an otherwise deeply patriarchal society, where women don’t get a voice in public meetings and where the sex ratio at birth is an alarming 879 females per 1,000 men (National Family Health Survey, NFHS-5), women’s freedom to choose their own clothing is something to cheer about. This small town in Rajasthan’s Banswara district is dotted with tailoring shops. The men’s tailors are split between those stitching shirts and pants and those who make wedding attire, like kurtas and coats for bridegrooms.
Both are rather sedate affairs, the colour palette not venturing beyond an occasional light pink or red. Also Read: Afghan refugee women in New Delhi stitching their way to free.