Bangalore

After two and a half weeks in India and oodles of new impressions, it’s about time that I focus on my chosen topics: I want to get to know the origin of all medical science, the 5,000-year-old art of Ayurveda, first hand. And I want to try on a sari, the typical Indian women’s garment.

As for Ayurveda, I receive as many different suggestions as people I ask about it. Usually, they are centres I should travel to outside of Bangalore. I put the plan on the back burner until I find an Ayurveda Centre on the Internet on Mahatma Gandhi Road, very close to my hotel. I head there on a Sunday.

On my way there, I notice an elegant fabric shop that is very busy. The many chairs in the shop are all occupied. Otherwise it is only this full in the many well-guarded jewellery shops. In Germany the shops are closed on Sundays. When I ask whether today is a special occasion I am told it is not. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays the sari shops are simply buzzing; that is when the Indians take their entire families sari shopping. At about the age of 17 or 18 years the girls begin wearing a sari. The older women wear them every day; nowadays the younger women prefer to wear jeans to work. But they like to wear saris to parties, family celebrations, or festive occasions.

At least 20 salespersons – a huge amount to my German eyes – are whirring about in the three-storey shop. In next to no time “my” saleswoman Vasantma spreads out widths and widths of fabric before me in the most marvellous colours and most delicate silk weaves. But, I don’t want to buy anything, I tell her two or three times; I’m just looking. In vain! I am served sweet, creamy coffee and before I know it I am standing in front of the high mirror on the wall. Two saleswomen fold and wrap a 6.5-metre long emerald-coloured length of material around me – and it looks fantastic! The in-house tailor is fetched, takes measurements, and asks me how I would like the sleeves, the front and back necklines, and blouse length. A good 80 centimetres of the 6.5 metres of fabric are used for the sari blouse. My robes will be sewn so that I only have to slip in and out of them in Germany, but do not need to wrap anything. The fabric costs 2,200 rupees (35 euros), the tailor gets another 500 rupees (8 euros), and then I need an undergarment I am told insistently (another 500 rupees). I can return in two days when the work of art is finished.

I don’t know if I will ever wear it in Germany. I would cause a sensation at the next opera ball. By all means it is a gorgeous keepsake from India and, at 3,500 rupees (51 euros), affordable, too. A ball gown in Germany would cost at least five times more. I also find out what my husband should wear to match it: a long, white kurta with a small, round Gandhi collar, and white trousers, shop manager Shivakumar and saleswoman Vasantma tell me.

Besides China, Indian and Japan are the main silk-producing countries. Eighty percent of the silk produced in India comes from Karnataka, the state in which I am living. “My” shop offers silk fabrics of various qualities, from crepe to georgette and chiffon to wild silk, exclusively from Bangalore. The least expensive sari fabric costs 500 to 600 rupees (8 to 9 euros), but it is synthetic and only looks like silk. The most expensive costs 50,000 rupees (almost 800 euros).

I never did find the Ayurveda Centre. A phone call revealed that it had moved to Old Madras Road six kilometres away.