Facebook is often blamed for being a prime waste of time that could be used for more fruitful pursuits. All the same, it has brought together friends long lost, through class groups and global alumni associations. Of course, most of the arguments hardly come to any definitive conclusion, and we truly have a house divided.
But recently a topic came up on our college alumni web site which was at once non-controversial as it was amusing. It was about the tailors we frequented from a fully residential medical college. Mind you, this was from the 1970s when invariably everyone wore clothes stitched by the sartorial aides. It would be another two decades before the readymade, branded clothes would make their mark in the Indian markets.
I vividly remember a tailor by name Rajan who ran his shop in Thorapadi, in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. It was then a place way out and forlorn. He did only men’s garments and undoubtedly considered himself to be one who maintained high standards. Looking back, I realise that he was a master in the art of cutting, which I reckon is at the core of the business of stitching.
He was a man of few words and expected you to put yourselves unreservedly in his hands and did not hesitate to show you his annoyance if you asked him silly questions. Once I made this mistake of asking him how long it would take to stitch my trousers. He stared at me briefly, and two thin lines of contempt appeared at the corners of his mouth. He curtly remarked it would take three weeks, as usual.
The women students from my class also talked about a ladies-only tailor, who they called Roopamathi, who despite the name was a man. Actually, Roopamathi was the name of his shop. One of them said she gave him clothing to sew a set of salwar-kameez. The top was bad enough, but the bottom-piece was infinitely worse: he had made it like a parachute. Being light-hearted, she went on to elaborate that she felt that if she wore it and jumped from a 10-storey building, she would still end up unharmed.
There are more tales. I understand that there were tailors who would come out with passable results if you drew sketches of the dresses you wanted. There was even a gent who claimed that while he worked for a Sultan, he was expected to take measurements of their lady folks from the reflection in the mirror. None questioned him as he was sure to come up with one more fib.
That era has passed and with the liberalisation that started in the 1990s the floodgates opened. It looks as if the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. One can buy anything from tooth paste to helicopters if he or she has the dough.
I wonder what has happened to the fraternity of tailors who played a vital role in my formative years by dressing me up in a rather swanky manner. Have they all folded up and gone in search of other jobs? I asked around, and gathered that those stitching for men are on the wane, but the more skillful among the ladies’ tailors, especially those who sew the salwar-kameez, have done very well for themselves. Some are so loaded with work they could give the good old Thorapadi Rajan a run for his money!
For that matter, what about other trades such as carpenters, goldsmiths and stone masons? I understand that even as the craze for gold ornaments has gone up exponentially, the conventional goldsmiths have in no way benefited. The number of new houses including flats is way beyond the imagination, but carpenters are not the ones doing interior design, and by and large they remain a poor lot. When I posed these questions to my brother-in-law, he looked at me hard for a long time and retorted with the question, “How long will we have conventional physicians?”
I did some soul-searching. Already men are opting out for fields such as information technology and management. It may well become a ladies’ job as in the former Soviet Union! Will one day robotics push all of us out, sending us job-hunting? Heaven forbid!
kuruvila2004@yahoo.com
