Festive seasons: Darzi dilemmas

Tailors can make one’s life miserable during the festive seasons.

KARACHI:

For women who rely on their tailor, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. With Eidul Azha and the wedding season just around the corner these men, donning measuring tapes around their necks, will go to great lengths to delay stitching clothes and make women cry profanity like the Star Plus soap actors.

Giving false hopes

Tailors are no less than the politicians who run our country. They will cross their hearts and vow to ready your clothes before the given deadline, but in 99 per cent of cases — they don’t. And when you — with your beautiful dreams of wearing the chiffon and lace embellished kameez — visit the darzi ki dukaan, he viciously smirks and torments you by simply nodding and promising to have the jora in question ready by the next day. Some tailors even deny the truth and say that they never agreed to a deadline. Sumaiya Rizvi, a 20-year-old college student, states, “Most darzis don’t understand the importance of a deadline. It’s always the same problems — either they had too many orders or the kaarigars (workmen) have run off. But really, are they really the last workmen left on the planet?”

KESC and LESC are the villains

All tailors are the same during festive seasons. It seems that they all pool in their ideas to come up with the perfect excuse to fool their clients. No matter what area you reside in, from Defence to Nazimabad in Karachi or Gulberg or Model Town in Lahore, each and every tailor has the same excuse: “Un ki waja sey aapke kapre tayaar nahi hoye.” We are all aware about the electricity problems in the country, but really, do tailors face power outages 24/7?

The clothes swap

While their shops are flooding with fabric and laces and they are aware that they won’t be able to stitch the clothes in time, they will still take your order and create major fiascos. Whilst rushing to meet their deadline, tailors often swap the measurements and will stitch your clothes in your mother’s measurements. Publicist Tehmina Khaled reveals her experiences,”Most of the times, tailors forward my clothes to other kaarigars, so there is a variation in each one of them, from the designing of an outfit to its size. It doesn’t look like one tailor has made my outfit.” At times, tailors think of themselves as designers. Dina, a young professional, says, “My tailor is really old and he has short-term memory issues. Even after meticulously taking notes he still ends up with his own invention on the hanger.”

Women of all social stratums face the same tailor woes and there is no end to it. In fact, with time, these problems grow bigger and greater.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2011.