Yearning for the Sari (and Everything It Holds)
On desire, distance, and the friendships I wish I still had.
If you’ve ever stood outside a room you longed to enter, or loved something you couldn’t quite reach, this one’s for you. If it resonates, I’d love for you to like, comment, or restack so others can find it too.
Next week: I’m thrilled to feature Dr. Alex Lovell, author of Life as I See It, joins us as a guest blogger.
In college, I wore a sari to a Halloween party like it was a costume. I didn’t know yet that what I wanted wasn’t the dress—it was the life that came with it.
The sari belonged to my landlord’s daughter. For three and a half years, I lived with a Pakistani family in their sprawling home near my college. Eirum, the daughter, and I became friends.
I remember my first taste of Pakistani food felt so exotic. Cumin, coriander, and turmeric had never touched my palate before. I never knew spices could taste so heavenly.
My mom cooked bratwurst and spaetzle.
Back then, I didn’t know the difference between Pakistan and India. I only knew the women were luminous. Fabric draped their bodies like water, their hair dark as night, some with burgundy highlights.
When my roommate and I put on our borrowed saris, we felt like queens. We also painted red dots between our eyebrows. My roommate was Irish, I was German, and well, let’s say we weren’t fooling anybody.
In 1984, I had no clue that Pakistanis are primarily Muslim and that a bindi carries Hindu meanings I didn’t understand. It wasn’t malice but ignorance. Still, ignorance can pinch.
I cringe thinking about it now.
Another misguided experiment happened a year earlier when I tried Eirum’s green henna powder on my hair. She didn’t warn me. How could this dark-haired beauty know what the henna would do to blonde hair?
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when blonde strands meet the henna tin, wonder no more: I turned Lucille Ball overnight. There’s a photo of me with traffic-cone hair and a face that says, “This seemed like a good idea yesterday.” I didn’t go to school the next day. I waited until I could book an appointment with a professional who stripped the color out, only to face a painful bill at the end. I returned to ash blonde (well, sorta) and learned an early lesson: someone else’s everyday beauty isn’t a DIY shortcut.
Forty years later, I thought I’d outgrown that longing. Then this weekend, I visited BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey. Costing $198 million to build, the temple sits on 185 acres and is the second-largest Hindu temple in the world.
Hindus are celebrating Diwali, so bursts of color are everywhere.
The mandir’s extravagance is magnificent to behold. The architecture is compelling; the carvings exquisite.
But something awakened in me when I saw the women dressed in saris.
What I love most about them? Nobody’s hiding in beige. Saris arrive like joy made visible—electric pinks, turmeric yellows, peacock blues—some edged with tiny mirrors that catch the light and toss it back as stars.
Beauty and expressiveness. Patterns bloom, borders tell stories, and suddenly a room feels like a festival even on a plain Saturday.
What would it feel like to live inside that kind of permission?
And the earrings! Big, generous, shoulder-grazing conversations—more lavishness, more story.
My own heritage is festive, but in a drunken sort of way. The dirndls are colorful, sure, but paired with lederhosen and suspenders that make grown men look like overgrown toddlers. Children get away with this apparel. Adults just look like Oktoberfest kitsch—all beer steins and forced cheer, nothing you’d wear to feel beautiful.
Beyond the fabric: Indian families are large, multi-generational. Everyone takes care of each other. There’s belonging woven into the everyday.
But the ache remains: I want to wear a sari again with those earrings—the big, beautiful statement ones that sway. Most of all, I want friends who are part of this culture to welcome and feed me. I want to be that luminous too, and if I can’t receive it myself, maybe I can at least be close to it.
But a friendship like this seems impossible in my homogenous landscape. I live in what’s known as the Irish Riviera. In September, the median home price in my town is $998,000. The homes are mostly owned by retirees who bought decades ago. During the summer, diversity streams in, but it’s only temporary.
The only South Asian people I see are behind the counter at the Indian restaurant on Route 35. The clientele is mostly Indian, so you know the food is outstanding. I always order chicken tikka masala, which I can never finish, and ask the waiter for a doggy bag. It never tastes as good the next day.
That sari isn’t just a garment. It’s friendships, dinner tables, and everyday intimacy with people whose beauty traditions seem more alive than my own.
How do I honor this love when I’m standing outside the room where it lives?
I love how you capture beauty and wistfulness.
I have always loved the color saris as well. I've never tried one on. I've had your red hair, though. LOL