Back to Work After the Festival

Two weeks of silk, zari and standing about, and then it is Monday and the office wants something else entirely.

This is the gap in most wardrobes here. There are six sarees for six occasions and nothing at all for a Tuesday — which is how people end up wearing a festive piece to work and quietly ruining it.

What an everyday saree has to do

Survive a commute, a chair, an air conditioner and a canteen. Hold a pleat without a starch job. Take a wash without a trip to the cleaner. That is a completely different specification from a puja saree, and it is met by completely different cloth.

• Cotton and linen — the obvious answer and the right one. Linen holds a crisp pleat all day; cotton breathes through a Kolkata October that has not yet understood it is October.
• Kota Doria — woven in an open square-check grid, so it is almost weightless. The one to own if you are unconvinced that a saree can be comfortable.
• Printed sarees — the lowest-maintenance of the lot, and a print hides a chair crease in a way a plain body does not.
• Dhakai jamdani — dressier, still cotton. The one for a day with a meeting in it.

The blouse is what makes it work daily

A festive blouse worn to the office is the thing that makes a cotton saree look like a costume. Two plain blouses in black and white, cut high and simple, will carry ten different sarees and take ten minutes of a tailor's time each. Order them in the same trip as your wedding-season blouses.

And for the days you are not draping anything

Kurtis and co-ord sets do the same job with a fraction of the decision-making, which on a Monday morning is the entire point.

What to do with the festive pieces meanwhile

Put them away properly — see what to do with the saree you just wore — because they are coming back out for the weddings in three weeks, and the six-week plan says when.