tailors, past and present continuous

I had briefly lost faith in tailors and switched to ready made blouses. I was introduced to 'athreya' readymade garments by niru and I was hooked on. It was painstaking to go to this shop which was way beyond my 'pettai' and also quite outside our usual forays in the city. But then style and fashion dont come easy.This shop used to have designer blouses when they were not very common. No, dont get me wrong thinking it has any connection to khushboo's wardrobe and jackpot programme.It used to be stitched just right and they had a good collection. I used to pile up sarees and do a wholesale purchase.It became a biannual ritual for me.
But then, my niece su, introduced me to tailors in our neighbourhood. She is very fussy and if a tailor makes it to her grade, then it is fine with me. So it was Aartline tailors for some time .It was quite inconvenient to reach, in a small gully just off adyar signal.They believed in order numbers and mobile contacts. Their workmanship was very good. Waiting for my clothes to be delivered became a learning experience for me. I learnt that the pullus of embroidered sarees need to have a netting cloth stitched on the underside. How i wish i had known earlier, many of my embroidery sarees would not have caught the sharp edges of chairs and tables that my pullav would sweep across. I got introduced to choosing my salwar designs from a fancy book that he displayed. But then on one occasion i had to make three trips for collecting an urgent blouse and that did it. Days of Aartline tailor was over for me.
Asiatac on vannanthurai took its place soon enough. It was a tiny shop and had a mezannine floor with the machines hammering away. Not the best place you would want to spend your spare time; but then it was on the way to office( and duly recommended by su again), so that was just fine.But he never EVER had the clothes ready on the due date.I ignored it for a while, but after sometime it became intolerably late; he would be searching for my bundle with no clue as to where it was.So that sealed the issue. I was busy looking elsewhere.And spotted a brand new shop just across the colony on MG road. He was just setting up his shop and i was perhaps his seventh customer. I was received very well. But he wanted 10 days for stitching a blouse, which i wanted to wear the next day!He said he is yet to set up his shop and has to get it from TNagar. But ten days? No way.
This is the story so far, upto colourstitch tailors. They are very near home and have a good ambience and priced slightly high. But somehow one felt good going there and they also stich as per specifications. When my churidar set was delayed by two days, I told the owner of the shop tailor to watch out, or else i will shift my business elsewhere. He said if you want delivery on time, then you have to forever keep shifting, because tailors dont stick around and keep disappearing often, so we are stuck with delays.
Attrition in the unorganised sector; I know to stich , so is this time to go back to 'tan kaiye tanaku udavi' my mother's abiding motto in life?