In a very different field – at Sunday’s Manchester Marathon – 41-year-old Madhusmita Jena Das stood out from the crowd not as an ‘also-ran’ but as a runner who completed the 42.5 km marathon in 4 hours and 50 minutes wearing a Sambalpuri handloom sari made in Odisha where the Mancunian school teacher ‘originally’ comes from. Plain ergonomics attests that wearing a sari and running aren’t made for each other. Das’ feat is impressive because she ran a marathon in a sari – akin to, say, climbing a mountain face in a business suit. Her objective – and for that she deserves kudos – was to bring the sari, in general, and the Sambalpuri, in particular, to a wider, unexpected, not-its-usual-context arena. Her point was not to encourage sari as competitive running standard gear – or, as some social media enthusiasts have gushed, to see people wear a Pattu sari in the US Open, or a Tussar silk in a triathlon. That would be missing the sari for the trees.
