Every year, the month of January rings in the invocation of Lord Surya, the Sun God. We also welcome the year with a festival named Makar Sankranti that marks crop harvests, like rice, lentils, beans, sorghum, and millet. Some call the festival Maghi. This festival follows the Solar cycle and is almost constant, unlike the festivals that follow the lunar cycle. Makar Sankranti festival commemorates the transition between the winter and summer solstices with longer days and shorter nights as the sun moves towards the North. According to mythology, Sankranti is celebrated in appreciation of the divine who killed the evil Sankarasur and Kinkarasur demons.
In Pune, the temple of Ayyappa located at Shasta Hills is surrounded by the Sahyadri Mountains. This temple celebrates the festivities with pomp and splendour. The temple is a replica of the Ayyappa temple in Pulmedu near the river Pampa in Kerala. The route to the temple at Pulmedu is a terrain path through dense forests. One has to trek through the rough terrain after 41 days of austerity to grow spiritually strong.
The Ayyappa temple on Shasta hills in Pune rejuvenates our soul with its view of magnificent mountains around and the green terrains. One has to climb the hill to reach the temple. It is a short trek to the temple but is an invigorating one.
While there were ten days left until Makar Shankaranti, cymbals and drums reverberated throughout the temple. The aura and the well-lit radiance of the lamps radiated far and near. The temple was unusually crowded and so were the paths leading to the temple. There were plenty of young girls ready in their dance costumes to perform. They were dressed in traditional Bharatnatyam attires. Several ladies and young mothers had gathered in one corner and were adding last-minute touches to the costumes and hairdo of their daughters
As the crowd grew, we retreated to a corner and waited for our turn to enter. People were dressed in various attires. Youngsters in jeans, ladies in the cream and white Kasavu sarees and men in kurta pyjamas and mundu. My eyes gazed around and suddenly rested on an elderly lady wearing salwar kameez. She was wearing a kurta on which she wore a dupatta in the traditional way, but her salwar pants were unique. The bottom of the salwar had frills that were held tight by a short ring, and it was a touch below the knee length. It was like Harem pants with plenty of frills but a shorter one.
I was suddenly transported to my childhood. When I was 8 years old my mother gifted me my first salwar kameez. It was bright pink in colour, and it was made of cotton.
Since the material was sufficient for two dresses, my sister and I had similar ones. There was plenty of frill on the pink salwar and its lower end had broad stiff support making the dress look beautiful. The top was a short tight kurta. In addition, she gave us a pink chiffon dupatta. It made me look elegant and I loved it. I thanked my mother for having given me something other than the frock and skirts that I wore regularly. As I grew older, my father bought another parrot green cotton material for a salwar kameez with a parrot green dupatta. I was 14 then and my mother got a patiala suit stitched for me.. The elegance and the grace made me look and feel good.
For many years, I stuck to stitching the same kind of Patiala dress. These pants were airy, frilled and had an elegance with comfort. One could sit anyway, play, run or walk briskly in it. It was loosely stitched and very comfortable. Even when I got married, there were changes in the kurta but the Patiala salwar remained the same. We also wore a smaller version of it, called the semi-patiala. Many preferred them as it was almost like western pants with a few frills. They were like sisters with the same zones of comfort. More than a decade ago I saw people switch to western pants with the kurta and the dupatta remained as usual. It looked business-kind and was accepted globally. They called it a fusion theme. Those who were on the plumper side did not like it a lot but the designers brought changes to the kurta to suit everyone.
With globalization, the Patiala lost the stiff bottom and changed to a dhoti pant. It resembled the men’s dhoti and the Kurta remained the same. People stopped sporting the dupatta.
Over time, the pants changed themselves to the palazzo, these were strongly accepted by everyone as they are comfortable like the Patiala and easier to wear. It had great similarities to the traditional Sharara. The sharara is a bit tight at the knee but the elegance is greater. People began using the palazzo as casual clothes and the sharara for festive occasions. They mixed and matched it in various ways.
The tailor’s shop began sporting long queues to decide what should be stitched with the dress material. In the olden days, we would spend time flipping through the patterns to choose the designs for the neck and kurta but now my tailor Ranjit began taking out greater time for the pants.
During my last visit, he said, ‘What shall I stitch? Belly dance pants, pantaloons, tribal fusion, Sparkly belly, pants, patiala, sharara, palazzo, harem pants, tight pants, salwar?
I sighed and said, “Do you know how to stitch all these? My choice is a salwar kameez as always but I am unable to decide whether it should be patiala or palazzo”.
I questioned, ‘What will be the best with this dress material?
He examined the length and texture of the material thoroughly and say, ‘ Salwar’
I retorted immediately saying, Why not Patiala or Palazzo?
Ranjeet said, ‘Cotton isn’t good for palazzos, the material won’t fall well. As the length of the cloth is just 2 Mts, it won’t suffice a Patiala.’
I looked back at the lady wearing the short Midi salwar with the frills in a ring and felt that it was the recent fashion trends that were cutting down the excess cloth and making it more comfortable.
The drum beats slowed down and the beats went on a low note now leaving us wondering whether it was over. The sudden surge of cymbals and the dholak shook me a few seconds later, and I was whisked back to the temple. The invocation to God was lost in the ringing bells that rung endlessly and the crowd that swung with ‘Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa’
The well-lit lamps and the crowd of people reminded us of one of the stampedes at Pulmedu where hundreds of people died a few years ago. My attempts to locate the stars were also unsuccessful since the newly built metallic sheets for protection against winds and storms hardly allowed us to see the skies. The Sirius star is said to be visible during the festival, but it occurs in Pulmedu in Kerala, not Pune, and we were a whole week before the event. We quickly rushed out. It was crowded on the path, but the hillocks around it were deserted. We sat down on the rocks on the hillocks. It was peaceful. The lights shone far off, and the sky was calm and well-lit with the moon and the stars. The tall green grass swayed silently. The serenity calmed my nerves and I understood the saying written in front of the temple from the Upanishads, something philosophical and rational for those seeking God. “I am in you” or “Thathwamasi is the god yourself,”
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