Long after the Japanese gave up their kimonos, the Chinese their Mao boiler suits and the South Americans their boleros, we Indian woman, whether at home or abroad, clung loyally to our saris. You saw doughty sari-clad Gujarati women on the top of the Matterhorn, on a safari in deepest Africa or river rafting on the Iguaçu. When curious American tourists inquired about the practicality of the garment, Indian women would wax eloquent on the marvels of the six metres of cloth. It was cool in summer, insulating in winter, never went out of fashion, never got out of shape and doubled as nightwear, a sheet or a picnic cloth.

A tall tale retold for decades is that the sari is supremely comfortable. Examples are cited of the number of Indian women who play tennis, badminton and hockey in saris. And it is pointed out that in our villages women even go swimming in a sari. For most of us, however, the sari can start unravelling pretty fast when you exercise strenuously. And even without exercise, a woman tends to look like a dhobi bundle in a cotton sari if there is no starch in the fabric.

Another myth about the sari is that it is a modest garment since it covers you from head to foot. American actor Bob Hope once joked that the "sari was one garment which hides both the good and the bad points of the figure." This is not true. Anyone who has seen an Indian movie with the heroine drenched in the rain in a diaphanous sari will tell you differently.

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