The Freaky Tailor

I was walking home from work one afternoon, when the watchman gave me a note which was written on the back sheet of some letter to the residents. It said something like, Hi, the other day you smiled at me...I'm a tailor and I do embroidery and stitching, etc etc. She does house visits and claims to know my neighbor. So I called her, her english was pretty good and she sounded educated...

This past week I've been trying to round up some nice dressy clothing for my cousins back home. The problem with finding dressy clothes here in Bangalore is that everything is short sleeves, or super ugly. So I had to go the unstitched outfits route...

I don't have much time during the day and my aunt was leaving in a week so I was desperate. So I asked her to come over and asked her to bring some work samples. So, one night she walks through our door looking a little disheveled, and smelling like sweat.

I told her to sit down...a while later she started showing me her work samples, which I admit were very neatly done. It lacked good design but at least there was workmanship. As my little "interview" proceeded, she began her life story. She has 3 kids and is divorced. She decided to sustain herself and refused to be a burden on her parents so she moved out of the house and took on random jobs in the field of clothing and tailoring.

She then went on to boast about her long list of clientele which included big department stores in the area. I told her she should look around and get an idea of new trends in fashion...(thought i'd help her understand her clothing is outdated) And she went on saying "Sumaiyya, by Allah's grrace, whatever idea is out there comes to my MIND without me even seeing it"...hmmm ok.

While looking at her work, she started telling me that she really wanted to do something for God so she married a poor man with the intention of making him a better, God fearing person...."Are you laughing yet?" she said. Freaked me out...the look on her face.

That was a grueling 2 hours more for me than her. I was freaking out but also real desperate to get this tailoring done. So I gave her one outfit to see how she works.

A couple days later, she came back with the outfit. She actually did a great job...