TAILORWOES

Cleaning and clearing the house is one of the major tasks of the post-Eid celebrations. But sitting back with a cup of coffee one might imagine the sheer amount of frenzy these past few weeks have seen. The shopping, arrangements, invitations, iftar parties, the parlour-ing and last but definitely not least, the tailoring. Amidst all chaos of preparing for Eid this one tedious task of dealing with tailors always tends to stand out. Tailors with their fabulously inventive excuses as to why our clothes are not stitched up on time.
If you think about it, in the past few years all of our tailors must have at some point of time fed us some very ludicrous tales. For example, it would not be a very long stretch to say that most of our tailors have for sure gotten married at least four times in the span of time we have been acquainted with them. Not to mention their ongoing compulsion to make the excuse of broken machines with a frequency that at times makes us want to buy them sewing machines to get the work going.

It's just when a party is on the horizon that all apocalyptic hell and every cosmic catastrophe breaks loose over the workshop of our tailors. And everything that is stitched is simply a catastrophe in itself. All this always during Eid. Other than that these people tend to be the Godfather of kameezes.
If lacking much entertainment we would suggest you take a tour of Banani Supermarket during Eid to witness the hilarious exchange between the distraught women and their evasive tailors. If lucky you'll get to hear the likes of ''Apa, apnar kapor er lace brishti te karkhana thekey bheshey choley gesey (Ma'am, your lace floated away on the rainwater from my workshop).'' And there's the classic ''Ato fine ekta kapor banate ektu time toh beshi lagbey (It will obviously take a little more time to make a garment of such fine quality).''

But most of the drama is worth it when one gets their hands on their Eid dresses stitched to perfection. On some very unfortunate occasions though the kameez being given to you is ruined so completely and so beyond repair that it takes a herculean effort to not burst into tears then and there on the spot. But instead we have to take on the next big challenge of extorting our tailors to fix what they have obviously ruined. If not for the dire situation one would definitely be rolling on the floor laughing at the tenaciousness of both the parties involved.
Sometimes some of us must wonder whether we should just take sewing lessons. But then again deep down we all know this love-hate relationship we have with our tailors is interesting enough. Keeps our claws sharp if nothing else.

Photo: LS Archive