The tailor who stole Eid

A cautionary tale.

ISLAMABAD:

Last Eid, Shazra Khan, a working woman and mother of three, thought she had found a loophole to the Eid clothes dilemma. She didn’t have to spend hours in the markets looking for cloth, lace and wasting time trying to come up with a novel stylish design. Neither did she have to risk the embarrassment of being caught wearing the same outfit as someone else if she went the ready-made route.

At a friend’s recommendation she found a tailor called “5 - star tailors” in the basement of F-11 Markaz. The new trend, already prevalent in Lahore and Karachi, of a tailor collecting the materials himself and making you a dress exactly as the one you choose out of a catalogue seemed like a god-sent to Khan. She paid him Rs5,000 for the dress.

And then, a day before Eid, the tailor vanished. Khan arrived outside the shop only to find a mob of angry women in disbelief.

Khan recalls, “I waited around the Markaz for about two hours in hopes that he was just away and would return at some point. He seemed like such a friendly person and he had sowed my friend’s suits before so it just seemed strange that he would take off like that.”

Khan’s experience is not an isolated incident. Iman Sadiq also gave Rs1,500 to a tailor in F-11 Markaz to sew her a dress. “He said he will be sow the dress for Rs2,500 so I paid him an advance of Rs1,500,” Sadiq said. She visited the tailor twice after that. One time he said he had prepared the dress but spilt tea on it, so he was making it again. “I was stupid enough to believe him,” she said. He, too, vanished.

Marina Rizvi, along with her mother and sisters, gave a tailor in Jinnah Super a similar order. They paid Rs12,000 to the tailor, who promised them the clothes a week before Eid, which dispelled any concerns on the part of the family that his intentions may be tainted. But of course, he was gone before the promised day.

Marina bitterly remarked, “I was so disgusted that someone could be so unethical during Ramazan.”

Indeed Marina is very apt in her observation as behaviour such as exhibited by these tailors is the antithesis of what Eid is all about. However, the pressure of getting new Eid clothes made and getting conned and robbed of those clothes seems slightly trivial as well. None of these people went to the police. Perhaps the ‘tailors’ were experienced enough to demand as much money as would not get their ‘clients’ riled up enough. Perhaps the people were just lazy.

One has to question whether too much pressure is being put on the celebration of Eid rather than the spirit of Eid? This is judgment each family should make for themselves keeping their resources in mind. But in the mean time make your Eid preparations wisely; do your shopping well in advance, only trust your resident tailor, save chaand raat for relaxation and recreation rather than shopping and if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2011.