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I have an eye for finding beautiful clothes. Though I find jeans and shirts/kurtas comfortable, I’m not sure why I adore the shalwar kameez so much! Perhaps it’s because it’s my national dress, and I adore everything that connects me to my homeland. Secondly, I’ve been wearing it since I was a child. My mother was an expert at sewing clothes, and she made all of my dresses.
Jeans and shirts/sweaters/kurtas/tops are the best choices when you’re in a hurry, wake up late, or go outside with friends. Wearing a shalwar kameez and dupatta requires a lot of effort. If you buy them ready-made or stitched, it’s great, but it’s not cheap. So the other option is to get a three-piece shalwar kameez suit and get it stitched, and believe me, getting a three-piece suit stitched, let alone in an amazing form, takes a lot of patience and effort. From wandering around shops looking for the perfect color combination and the exact materials for your dress to outlining the design and purchasing laces, buttons, and embellishments, it’s a long process. If you bought a shirt impulsively because it looked good to you, finding the perfectly colored shalwar and chiffon dupatta in the same color is a pain. It takes me up to two weeks to collect everything and nearly a month to pick up that suit from Darzan (the seamstress). Maybe I’m too lazy. Many times, when the suit is being prepared, summers have turned into winters, and I simply pack those suits in the hopes of wearing them the following season, when those colors will not be in style at the time.
I received two beautiful lawn (summer’s fabric) suits from two of my teachers for my birthday, and I adored them. I kept them in a cupboard for months, hoping to get them stitched someday. Then, a few weeks ago, I spent three days shopping for matching shalwars and laces before the darzan stitched them, which took one month. I picked them up last week and was overjoyed to find such nice clothes. I have not tried them yet, and now there are winters in Islamabad.
The hassle does not end here. It takes nearly 20 minutes to iron a suit before going out in a shalwar kameez. And if you have a chiffon dupatta, you will undoubtedly cry if you have to iron two or three suits at once.
My sister lives abroad, works long hours, and rides a bicycle, and almost every day she is dressed in jeans, sweaters, jackets, and pajamas. She usually makes one visit per year. Although she orders many eastern dresses online and visits many malls and boutiques in Pakistan to purchase shalwar kameez, I buy her a suit of my choice every year, particularly for Eid. She enjoys wearing them and frequently sends me photos. Her husband is an excellent photographer who knows how to capture stunning photos of her wearing each shalwar kameez and dupatta. Seeing her happy makes me happy, too.
It was one of those Eids that she celebrated with us. So, before her arrival, while scrolling through Instagram, I came across a white dress. White is one of my favorite colors. Although it only looks good on my sister, I ordered two suits so that we could wear matching clothes, as we used to do on Eid in our childhood, and everyone thought we were twins.
It was a beautiful dress made of a fabric we call chicken-kari in our language; the sleeves were chiffon with an organza front, and the neckline was white net with small pink and green flowers. The dupatta was stunning, long and wide, made of white organza and stamped with flowers in pink and green that complemented the neckline. It was a stunning dress, but what made it so special to me was the memory of that Eid we shared. She took that suit with her, and I’m not sure if she wore it again, but I have worn it several times since then. Every time I wore it, I received many compliments, particularly on the long and white elegant organza dupatta.
A few days ago, a very good friend of mine planned to have lunch with me. We had planned for an outdoor location. It was a Friday. On Fridays, the majority of Muslims wear nice clothes, mostly white. I considered wearing that white dress.
I’ve enjoyed ironing clothes since I was a child. It makes me happy to see extremely crumpled clothes transformed into flawless, elegant outfits. I find it oddly satisfying. When I was a teenager, my family would throw a pile of clothes on me whenever we went somewhere, and I would spend hours ironing everyone’s clothes. I was ironing the dress while my mother sat in the same room. I’ve noticed that whenever I do something in front of someone else, especially if they’re watching me closely, I always mess it up, no matter how skilled I am at doing it. I was ironing the dupatta, and despite being an expert at ironing, my organza dupatta became burnt due to the iron’s high temperature. Maybe I got distracted. I was already feeling miserable, and my mother looked at the iron stand at the same time. She scolded me for nearly half an hour, but after careful inspection, she announced that because the dupatta was too long, we could make things right by cutting a few inches.
I am not the type of person who keeps their cupboards organized. When I open the door, a pile of clothes falls on the floor, and I struggle to identify the components of a full dress. As soon as I find one, I throw back all of my clothes, iron them, and run away. So I wasn’t in the mood to find another suit, iron it, and get ready in 15 minutes, and I didn’t want to be late because I had pre-decided the time with my friend, and I was already late. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that by cutting a bit of it and stitching the ends again, I could restore my dupatta to its original state. But my friend was coming in about 15 minutes, and I didn’t have enough time. So I thought I’d just fold the dupatta so that the damaged area was folded inside.
My mood was extremely low, first because of the damage done to my favorite dress, and then because of my mother’s lengthy lecture. But I did my best to remain enthusiastic and continued ironing the shirt and trousers. My mother left for the kitchen. When I placed the iron on the neckline, the net melted away. I was shocked and on the verge of tears; there were only five minutes left and my friend had texted me that she would be in front of my building soon. I wore that dress, folded the dupatta, and pinned it to the burnt neckline so that the damaged areas were not visible. After that, I was down for nearly a week. I folded that suit and stored it in the lowermost compartment of the cupboard so that my mother would not discover that I had also ruined the shirt. I know it will never be the same again, just like the new one. And, as I purchased it more than three years ago, that design will not be restocked.
My mother has an old chiffon dupatta embroidered by hand. It belonged to my maternal grandmother (Nani). I’ve had my eye on it since I was a child. When I wear it, I am reminded of her smell. When I wear that dupatta, it feels as if my Nani’s soft, childlike hand is over my head. I always remind my mother to give me that dupatta. It belongs to me. Not my sisters. Surprisingly, they aren’t interested in that old, faded dupatta.
I adore my sister’s wedding outfit. Her wedding was scheduled for a week, and she traveled to Lahore with my mother to purchase her wedding dress. They visited every market, but no one was willing to make a wedding dress in two to three days. As our budget was too tight, she called me from Lahore, and I found her a dress worth 18,000 PKR at an Islamabad boutique.
It’s an ivory sharara with a kurta with minimalist embroidery in shades of dull gold and powder pink. The dupatta is pink with a gold border all around. That dress is so close to my heart; she only wore it once, but I’ve worn it five or six times. Maybe I like the dress more than she does. I’m not sure why I love it so much. Perhaps I enjoy wearing it because I have fond memories of my sister wearing it on that special day in her life.
Things are not weighed or valued based on their price; what matters is the love we have, the memories that remind us of the wonderful times we had with our loved ones. Sometimes we lose things in our lives that we will never find again, and we are devastated. Now I understand why we are saddened by seemingly insignificant losses, simply because they are associated with fond memories. Simply because those things remind us of our love for them. So much love. So much so that only the thought of being separated from those things can hurt us.
Damane Zehra is a radiation oncology resident in Pakistan.
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