Sari

A nation that is proud of its heritage.

A country in which everybody is a recognized individual.

I know I have kept on talking about customization, but that was what I learnt from the book, We Are Like That Only. The book is about understanding the consumer India, focusing on conveying the idea that there is never enough attention paid to the distinctions of every fragment of the market. This emphasis has reflected one major characteristic that is shared by the entire Indian culture, in which a great number of distinct groups coexist peacefully. That is, the pursuit of recognition. The strong desire for recognition might be due to the collective nature of this culture where people stay together more often and its people place greater value on others' opinions, when compared to an individualist society. This pursuit is manifested in Indians’ everyday life.

Take Sari as an example. When I was trying to find a duplicate for a piece of sari fabric, every seller told me it is extremely hard, if not impossible. The "artists" (from the word, you can tell their high respect for handcraftmanship) create only one set of sari fabric at one time. Even though they may produce another one with the same pattern, they can never get an exact copy of the previous one due to the nature of handcraftmanship. Human beings can never do exact copying, let alone the complicated process of making the fine sari. The complicated decoration and dye during the process, rules out the possibility of machine production of sari. This led to the uniqueness of sari.

Behind the sari-must-have mindset is differentiation that is needed for being recognized in crowd. A Sari is some sort of means to differentiate one from another. The more, the better sari you have, indicates a higher status because you have more only-for-you to show your distinctiveness. As reflected in We Are Like That Only, Indians need something made only for them. This can also be used to describe individuals in Indian society. There are many ways to achieve the goal of getting recognized in India. I think the highly valued handcraftmanship is a good manifestation of the pursuit in India culture. Those means help an individual (in the sari case, a female) to be more easily, and frequently recognized by their surroundings. That also indicates the necessary of the consideration of special context. For example, if not in India, wearing a sari might not be a positive recognition, because it does not have the symbolic meaning of that in India. That is why I did not get one even though I was dying to own one, if not more - there are hardly any appropriate occasions for me to wear one when I got out of India.