"In India's highly unequal and stratified country, the sari is the most democratic clothing; it cuts across classes and castes, regions and religions, albeit with delightful variations in weave, fabric and style of draping. Of all the different kinds of clothes women can wear -- dresses, shorts, skirts, gowns, kurta pyjamas -- it's also the most empowering to the female form; its one-size-fits-all style is wonderfully non-hierarchical about weight or body type. There is probably no woman in India who does not own a sari; the villager who walks 10 miles to fetch water for her children, an earthen pot perched precariously on her head, has one, as does the chief executive of the biggest corporate firm. In the weave of the sari, our history, culture, collective consciousness and identity are tied together."


Barkha Dutt takes on the New York Times for its appalling misrepresentation of what the sari means to Indians. Do read


Image: Indira Gandhi wears a purple silk brocade sari to a White House state banquet hosted by the then US President Lyndon B Johnson and his wife during her 1966 visit to the US. Priyanka Gandhi wore the same sari to the wedding reception of Ajitabh Bachchan's daughter Naina.