your dhoti and kurta is not quite ready sir...

the shopkeeper phoned the tailor's son, who said that the tailor was at the temple praying...so, it would be another half an hour before my dhoti and kurta would be ready...this was at 1845, after the shopkeeper had assured me yesterday that I come after 1800 and it would be ready...my suspicion is that the half an hour would be closer to 2 hours, so I took off back to Gokulam

i'd arrived at the silk emporium 1820, Manju my rickshaw driver picked me up around 1800, Manju asking - pick up the stitching?, his way of asking if the tailoring had been finished. I'd seen a couple of dhoti's around the place. My friend Andrew, from Adelaide via Encinitas, definitely looks the part in one, as does Arnet and Ben had a shot at wearing one too. Dhoti's are a traditional form of Indian clothing, I'd asked Andrew whether it was a cultural faux pas to call them a skirt...he said, yes, it is...i like the idea, there's a number of different ways to fold the rectangular piece of fabric that is a dhoti, most suited to warm indian weather, allowing some good ventilation up under the fabric, or so it looks like to me.

at the store, when i turned up, they didn't outright say that the tailor wasn't there, but instead suggested i check out some of their other goods for sale, upstairs...they have some awesome brass, marble, onyx, gold and silver, semi precious stones (see the pic in this post), sandalwood, rosewood...after that the shopkeeper gave me the "half an hour" line...enough for me to quit the scene and head back to Gokulam in the rickshaw...