The experience was totally rewarding. Salwar suits are wonderfully comfortable. They're loose and flowing. Nothing is tight or confining. It is a bit difficult to figure out what to do with the dupatta, which is draped in any of several different ways, none of which seem to stay in place for me. Most commonly, it’s draped across the front with the ends handing over the shoulder to the back. This is done, Mehdi explained to me, because that covers a woman’s private area. Of course, it also covers the area most likely to be beautifully embellished, drawing attention to beauty by hiding it. I wondered if the symbolism was intentional. In any case, the dupatta is totally non-functional—but so romantic!

I was so pleased with the success of my experiment that I bought another salwar suit the following weekend, a dark green silk one with beautiful hand embroidered peacocks at the neckline and sleeves. The response to that one was equally complimentary. I was off and running—or I should say, off and shopping.

Over the next several months, I bought about a dozen salwar suits. I learned to recognize the different regional styles. Lucknow, a city in Utter Pradesh in north India, is known for chikan (pronounced like “chicken”) work. Chikan work is the same as what is called shadow work embroidery in the West. The fabric is always thin and pastel and the threads run across the back of the fabric so they will “shadow” through to the front. Salwar suits from Lucknow are totally covered by this type of embroidery, in beautiful, elaborate patterns. Gujarati salwar suits, on the other hand, are dramatic, with large areas of bright colors and simple but striking hand embroidery.

Not all salwar suits are ethnic looking; many are made of simple print fabric with perhaps a little lace around the neckline. The kurta alone, without the salwar and dupatta, looks like a simple Western shift dress. Those, however, haven’t interested me. From the beginning, my salwar-shopping has concentrated on hand embroidery and ethnic designs.

After the salwar suits came the bindis. A bindi is a decorative mark on the forehead, between the eyebrows, worn by Indian women. It can be as simple as a mark drawn with an eyebrow pencil or an elaborate design with small gems. I began to buy small packets of reusable, stick-on bindis to wear with my salwar suits.

Not all marks worn on the forehead are bindis. A painted red dot worn there by a woman indicates married status. A red mark or line worn there by either sex can also be a religious sign, applied after worship. Different people gave me different explanations for applying a mark at that place. One said, it’s because all the nerves in the body end there. Another said, it prevents a man from gazing lustfully into a woman’s eyes because it’s distracting. After that explanation, I almost give up wearing them.

Finally, there was the mehandi, elaborate designs drawn on the hand with henna. I appeared at work one day wearing it, after attending a party that included a mehandi artist. One of my Indian friends examined it and approved of how dark it had come out. “You know what that means!” I did; I’d been told the night before. It means I will get a good husband.

Hema has long since moved on from i2, without ever seeing the extremes to which her suggestion led. About a week ago I went to work in slacks and pullover top. When I ran into Mehdi in the tearoom, he looked at me and said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you dressed Western, Lorre!”

Lorre Weidlich, a temporary expatriate from Hyde Park, can be reached at Lorre_Weidlich@i2.com. Let her know if there is any particular aspect of Indian life you want her to address in an article.