Chennai Silks essentially serves as Tamil Nadu’s version of a Super Target. In Vellore, its white fluorescent lights illuminate the national highway (the same one we drove down the wrong way for at least a mile our first day here). Women, me included, spend tens of hours a day strolling through floors and floors of anything you can think of—and literally no part of this sentence is an exaggeration.

When I first arrived in Vellore after three days of Fulbright orientation in New Delhi, I visited Holy Cross Matriculation Upper Secondary School and met with Principal Sr. Jesu Savari who immediately reiterated the strictly enforced “Saree teacher dress code.”it is this required uniform that has provided the perfect opportunity to share my experience of Indian culture, hospitality, and life with the majority of us who are so foreign to it.

My first steps into Chennai Silks were audaciously guided by Silpa, the wife of Suresh, a man who has taken on the daunting task of teaching us Tamil for the next month with similar courage. Now, think for a second—where in the U.S. would the spouse of one’s tutor, teacher, or anyone for that matter, voluntarily sign up to spend hours shopping with a foreigner to whom they had never even been introduced? Keep in mind, I have literally noooo idea how to select, match, purchase, tailor, or wrap a saree. In fact, I don’t even know how to purchase any item from India’s “Costco” (this will make sense later) nor can I ask for help in the state’s mother tongue.

After entering the floor nearly entirely dedicated to sarees, Silpa and two female employees quickly got to work pulling from racks and racks of materials. The saree floor resembles the fabric isle of your local Michael’s, but replace the drab synthetic fabrics with cotton, silk, and crepe materials in vibrant colors and patterns and imagine it scaled up by at least five. Each woman would recommend a new fabric initiating a migration to another isle where we analyzed price, pattern, print, and intended occasion. Should I show even the slightest interest in a fabric, the women would insist that it be taken off the hanger and opened. To my surprise (and perhaps this will shed some light on exactly how ignorant I was about sarees), the layers of fabric within one saree were each distinctly different and were therefore intended for a different area of the saree. Folding back the top piece of fabric would sometimes reveal an entirely new color or a unique pattern, many of which led to immediate rejection and a few of which led to awe and attachment. Though the first few fabrics I selected on my own led to giggles from the two female employees who opened the sarees with clear amusement at my poor taste, I eventually (meaning 2+ hours later) fell in love with 8 sarees, three of which led to high-fives from Silpa for my excellent taste…weird flex!  

But the story does not end here. On top of the purchase of these grand materials, sarees apparently also require an inskirt and a blouse liner. And so off we went: me and Silpa accompanied by at least three employees who insisted on carrying all of the sarees for us. Soon two more women were around suggesting inskirt colors and matching lining fabric to the accent colors of each saree. Again, anything we touched was laid out across a table for group analysis and approval until finally an adequate number of fabrics had been gathered. All the while, Silpa answered my ignorant questions, shared stories of her daughters, and checked and double checked that the fabrics we selected were to my taste, not hers.

Several hours later, and by several, I mean five…five hours later, we had finished our saree selection and ventured back to the ground floor to check out. Now here again is a place where I must stop for emphasis. Chennai Silks has no carts. No baskets. No bags. Nothing. Just enough employees to carry literally every item you touch. You want to try that on? Hand it over to one of the four women behind you who will remove it from the hanger and walk you to a dressing room. You want to buy this? Give even the slightest nod and it will be carefully folded and carried down to the register where it will be waiting for you to come pay even after another three hours of wandering the store. I literally never carried an item more than five feet without someone offering to take it off my hands, help me match it with a pair of leggings, or show me something similar that they thought I might like.

On the ground floor, a stack of material, clothes, towels, etc. waited in a pile as Silpa and I merged into the crowd pressed against the register to check out. A minimum of four employees who had helped us shop throughout the day gathered all our things, and one man held the tag of each item for another to scan one by one. 13,000 rupees later, I breathed a sigh of relief only to realize that once again my items had all been carried away by a sea of eager employees. Across the room, Silpa led me to another mild mosh pit where I reached a new counter and was instructed to hand over my receipt. Behind the counter were shelves of brown paper bags and what appeared to be a laundry shoot with a continuous supply of more of these stuffed bags. The man who had my receipt collected at least seven of these bags from the shelves and laid them on the white tile counter. A royal blue stamp pad was assaulted by his quick hands as he banged a large stamp labeled “Delivered” onto each receipt stapled to the brown bags.

I couldn’t help but giggle at the process as he slid the freshly stamped bags of my carefully chosen sarees into orange canvas bags and handed them over the counter. Even now, after another four-hour trip and 5,000 more rupees at Chennai Silks guided by familiar faces from the day before, the method still seems so silly and foreign to me. But it could not be a better scene with which to share the intensity of Indian hospitality and culture. Today, during my second visit to “Costco India,” many of the employees joked in few words and large grins about my and Silpa’s quick return. A few inquired about why this confused foreign girl was frequenting their store and one even shared that he had a daughter who attended Holy Cross where I will soon be teaching (I still can’t get over the name!). Additionally, Silpa took me to her tailor to be fitted for my sarees and negotiated prices for me with her long-time friend. The tailor took my measurements, offered food, and introduced me to her mother-in-law and small daughter all within our short interaction as the car ran outside. Silpa joined us for dinner and shared food over stories of her daughters, a close analysis of American coins, and inquiries about our families and lives in the U.S.

Soon, Silpa and I will return to her tailor where I am certain that she will offer her honest opinion about the fit of the saree. We will share another meal, and she will teach me how to wrap and pin myself into this intricate regalia. Even more, in just a few days I will move into the first-floor unit of a house in Vellore kindly rented to us by the family above. There, once again, I am certain that my new Amma (mother) and Akka (elder sister) will also help me properly dress in my new school attire. And when my saree slips from my shoulder due to my poor saree-wrapping skills, I am certain that another teacher there will offer a brief tutoring session between giggles to save me from my impending wardrobe malfunction.

You see, this behavior, though touching, is not unique to Silpa, a certain employee, nor my adopted host family, and it is definitely not unique to the experience of saree shopping. Since my arrival, I have been overwhelmed with the amount of offers and experiences like this one, and I have been slowly learning that I should have left the concept of inconveniencing those offering to help me at customs in Delhi. Even more, the song and dance that Americans have perfected of graciously rejecting offers of hospitality has come to seem so ridiculous. Though the “in-your-business” swing of Indian life might not be entirely realistic in the United States and though I have certainly faced moments here to which I prefer American ways, perhaps we should learn to foster and embrace moments of connection within our community through hospitality. Perhaps having guests should not be an inconvenience. Perhaps it should not carry the normal pressure of a spotless house or a designated time, but maybe, just maybe, it should be flexible to fostering an authentic connection and innate care for one’s neighbor, no matter how foreign and confused they might be.