Kochi, South India: Alice in Frocks, attended by footmen

Alice, giddy from all the Frock attention

All the attendants stood and watched Alice change in the dressing room, without shame.

They did her hair too. Note the bolero.

A smaller, but still growing, collection of attendants

All the attendants were jealous of this one who got to help Alice try on each dress.

They all ran up to me after the picture to see the replay of their photo on my camera. Then, they'd make fun of each other in the photo.

April 3, 2011

In Kochin neighborhood of Ernakulam, the silk clothing shop was filled with every possible color and a lot of Indian women, walking around barefoot trying saris on, attended to by many workers. These attendants saw Alice coming and flocked to her in droves, as if she were a celebrity. By the end, we accumulated at least 12 attendants.

When they heard she was interested in fancy dresses, they gushed, “Oh, FROCKS!” And, they physically steered us towards the Frock section, with each attendant running in multiple directions getting the frock they thought she’d love most. They laid them out in front of Alice and she laughed hard, then relished the moment, deeply contemplating each dress. And, Indian dresses glitter, sparkle, shine, and bedazzle like none other. Alice had met her country and her dresses.

Alice chose 4 frocks to try on, leaving a trail of weeping attendants who lost behind. But, that didn’t stop them from all coming into the “trial room” where Alice changed her clothes to stick their noses in to watch her try on every frock, in detail, all laughing and commenting in Tamil, sometimes shocked into an awed silence at how phenomenal Alice would look in a certain dress. I made Alice come out and take pictures with all the attendants.

How the attendants loved getting their picture taken with her, after an initial moment of shyness. But, their favorite part was seeing the photo on my camera, afterwards. 10 of them would push in, looking at the picture, chattering and mocking each other in Tamil. Alice chose a couple of the fanciest, most peacock-strutting dresses and moved down to slightly more casual dresses, with less attendants present the more casual and less expensive the dresses became. All I know is I saw dollar signs in the eyes of the male attendant in charge, who, after much trying on by Alice, totaled up our bill for us. We knew we’d bought more than usual when they gave us a free duffel bag to put all of Alice’s dresses in. Abraham, her lifelong attendant, carried it for her to the tuk tuk.

That night and the following night, Alice wore her dresses out to dinner, slowly walking down the catwalk of Kochin streets, with appreciative Indian families pointing and ah-ing, being a culture that loves a good, sparkly, girly strut down the street.