COMMENT:

The Sari: Why not?

Elegant and practical national dress:

by Rosanne Koelmeyer Anderson

Are we Lankans prisoners of the Sri Lankan Sari? Why be 'prisoners'? After all, we are proud to be Sri Lankan, aren't we, or rather we ought to be? The National Reform Society in 1931 was quite right in deciding that the Kandyan sari should be the Sri Lankan national dress for women.

Afterall, every country has a national dress and moreover women are proud to grace an occasion in their national attire, I believe. When representing a state overseas too it has become common practice to request participants to present themselves in their national dress at least on the day of the opening ceremony and having done so myself on many an occasion, I think it adds grace, glamour identity and feminity to women.

The Sri Lankan sari is one of the most graceful attires a woman could be clad in, in my opinion. Why make all the excuses for having to wear a sari to wrap six yards around oneself, the inconvenience, the inability to keep pace with companions of the opposite sex and so on? Why segregate this dauntingly elegant dress code to a few professions like teachers and lawyers and disregard it as being incompatible with all others.

Take a look at Sri Lankan Airlines, the first in Asia to be awarded the prestigious Imperial Mark, a global accolade of excellence in recognition of its exceptional levels of service and quality, what did our hostesses have to offer the world, an identity, an identity of being truly Sri Lankan in appearance, hospitality and service.

These negative notions of being a 'prisoner' of the sari is all in the mind and simply an excuse for those who would prefer to make other choices which they feel may make them look more chic and trendier or take them a few years back in time at least for a few moments.

It's just a matter of conditioning one's mind to think positively, to appreciate one's identity as a Sri Lankan and be proud of what you simply are instead of inculcating a false sense of values by mimicking the dress sense of cultures alien to ours.

Why should authorities be asked to be more flexible as to permit the selected group of professionals who very aptly clad themselves in their national dress to work to be given the choice of presenting themselves in any other attire other than the national dress?

In my opinion authorities should seriously rethink the possibilities of stipulating that the national dress be compulsory for work in offices.

Afterall, this would not mean that we are claimed prisoners, would it? An interesting question that could be raised simultaneously is 'Why should this apply to women only and not men? why not, follow suit.

The Hon. President of the Republic of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa is the best example of a true Sri Lankan, and proud to be Sri Lankan.

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