The perfect suit, made to alter
Shreya Roy Chowdhury | TNN New Delhi: If you are nostalgic about discarding your father's well-worn yet classy herringbone tweed blazer only because it isn't your size, there's help at hand. You only need to head for Meher Chand Market behind India Habitat Centre and seek services of the specialist tailors who have elevated the mundane job of alteration to an art. Even alterations of a drastic nature — turning doublebreasted jackets into single breasted ones or gent's coats to ladies — are undertaken by these intrepid masterjis. Only, don't call it alteration. They are the masters of their craft, which is called ''wonder''. The Eighth Wonder of the World is a tiny, dim-lit tailoring shop. One of the oldest in this lane, the shop has old suits hanging from wall pegs and scraps of cloth littering the floor. The signboard bears the legend, ''God made man, we make gentleman.'' The other tailoring shops down the lane, most of them called some ''wonder'' or the other, are humbler in their claims. They only promise to make ''old pant new''. According to Om Prakash Tagadha of 1st Wonder Om Tailors, the original 8th wonder shop was started by Gurucharan Singh in the 1950s in the Double-Storey Market adjoining Meher Chand Market. They were capable of remarkable tailoring feats those days. Justly proud of the 'miracles' he could work on old suits, Singh called his service a ''wonder''. The other masterjis followed and the list of wonders at Meher Chand Market grew to nearly two dozen. ''Log isko Wonder Market ke naam se bhi jaante hain,'' says Ashwani Chopra of Chopra Tailors or 11th Wonder. Tagadha recalls one such act of ''wonderment''. Around three decades ago, a customer brought him a pair of bellbottoms he had outgrown by a good 10 inches. The pants had flares over 30 inches wide. With nothing more than the original pants, he produced a pair with a wider waist but narrower bottoms. There are fewer such demands and business isn't that good but a handful of tailors in this market still refit, reline and resize old coats and trousers, giving them a new lease of life. The knowledge is passed on from uncle to nephews, expert to novice. And the wonder lives. [email protected] TAILOR-MADE: Almost all the shops are called some wonder or the other --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/thatha_patty?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
