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I was on a 16-day trip to 10 cities in India. One of my students, Saad, who lived in Bangalore, was to help me get a sherwani. By the way, a sherwani is a formal suit of clothing used for special occasions. Well, first we went to his personal tailor to have my measurements taken. I figured that we'd pick out the material there and have the thing made in a couple days. But no, we had to go to ANOTHER tailor to select the material. That turned out to be a MAJOR undertaking, because Saad was never satisfied with the quality of the 57 varieties of black material. So we began looking for a ready-made sherwani. In the third shop, I found an absolutely beautiful suit - all black with gold
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Well, first we went to his personal tailor to have my measurements taken. I figured that we'd pick out the material there and have the thing made in a couple days. But no, we had to go to ANOTHER tailor to select the material. That turned out to be a MAJOR undertaking, because Saad was never satisfied with the quality of the 57 varieties of black material. So we began looking for a ready-made sherwani. In the third shop, I found an absolutely beautiful suit - all black with gold embroidery from the neck to the hem. It fit perfectly. The only problem was that the embroidery was slightly warped. The thing just would lie in alignment. The shop couldn't fix it, either. Sigh! It was beautiful.
So, we were on to the fourth shop. This whole thing was adding up to about 3 hours by now. We headed to old Bangalore through these narrow alleyways amid throngs of people out for the evening.
We were so far off the beaten path, I must have been the first white guy to show up since the British blew town (1947). In this little shop, which I could never find again in a million years, I came upon my perfect sherwani, the Holy Grail of wedding clothes if you will. It was exactly what I had in mind and fit as though it were tailor-made. The shop keeper threw in a two pairs of pajama pants, one white and one black. The moojlies, or shoes, I tried on set the whole outfit off. The whole outfit came to about $185.
I've worn it to a few occasions, including the Sri Lankan wedding, and it has never failed to be a hit.
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