The durzis had a hierarchy - Morsalem on the corner of Harrington St was considered a burra memsahib's tailor. He made my sister 's wedding dress. He had the gift of being able to cut beautifully but he was expensive (by Calcutta standards) and so was only used for special occasions. Abdul tailor was our durzi from when I was very small and would make lovely towelling confections to be worn in Puri. Not so successful was the towelling bikini that became waterlogged and fell down but he was always generous in letting us see what the doyennes of fashion were having made and in making the same for us. Finally there was the verandah durzi who came and sat on the verandah for a week or ten days and ran shirts and nightgowns and all purpose clothing.
Naughty Desmond stole the verandah durzi away from all the memsahibs and kept him happily employed in Minto Park making ever bolder design in shirts from raw silk and brightly coloured cotton. I don't think he ever returned to the verandahs of the memsahibs. He made my favourite dress - a black and white poplin halter neck that Desla designed when I said I was fed up of the good girl clothes I always wore. I thought I was the bees knees in the dress which was almost completely see through and was worn with Dorothy's black velvet and fur trimmed evening coat from the thirties.
The Heywood girls would arrive for Christmas with lovely, fashionable clothes that were copied several times over. Nothing was sacred - all designs were up for grabs even thought it must have been intensely irritating to arrive at the races in your new frock and to see at least three other people wearing the same thing. Abdul tailor managed to share the designs and not lose his customers - a rare talent in what was increasingly a game of one upmanship. He was also the recipient of my unwanted 'lost' animals - he would always take the goats that had been rescued from the Maidan and keep them out at Howrah where he lived. I suspect they made a lovely biriani at the end of Ramadan.
All these clothes needed washing and there were no washing machines - just the dhobi. Dubby's mother in law's verandah looked down on the the dhobi ghats - full of sheets and shirts being pounded against stone to loosen their dirt and increase the whiteness. I remember feeling glad that our dhobi did the washing in Mum's bath and hung it out to dry on the roof. He came three times a week - the tropics demand that clothes are only worn once and often changed two or three times a day. Everything was washed, dried and ironed ready to be put away by Abdul bearer. How spoilt we were - I am sure that the reason I hate ironing so much now is because I never had to do it when I was younger - and as for handwashing - not a clue!
Such a privileged life - such fun. I would love to feel guilty for enjoying the privileges we had but I don't. I knew I was lucky and I enjoyed every minute of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment