apple jam and lime green or a saree (or two) in the time social distancing

 

social distancing. what a funny sounding coinage. no music in it, no vibe, almost cloddish. yet, it will perhaps save the human race.

it's strange to write that last sentence without there being a trace of exaggeration in it. 

anyway, what do you do when it's all about social undistancing? when it's time to gather, to celebrate, to come close? time to bring to mind again events and forces that in fact helped create human societies, established the need for bonding, for being together, for trusting each other? time for apple jam?

this year rosh hashanah, the jewish new year, fell on 18th to 20th of september, and we were eight months and more deep in the covid world.

there would be no rosh hashanah gatherings of family and friends around large tables with extra chairs crushing against each other to accommodate everyone, platters of festive food spilling over, and blessings being said with much gusto and joy over dates, long beans, chives, pumpkin, apple jam, pomegranates, and more. 

the sweet challah bread of new year that would be dipped in honey instead of salt, would not be passed around to the twenty, thirty, fifty people in the room.

this year, in singapore, we are allowed to have only five guests. 

we had a quiet rosh hashanah at home, just the four of us. i am not too good with crowds and big parties, so a part of me must have been quite happy, and yet, i missed the voices and the feeling of people around me. 

so and so would have shouted out that word during the saying of this prayer. such and such would have guffawed loudly when that was said. the children would rush and queue up for the food, the adults would feign patience. for the nth time the same tale would be told and we'd laugh.

laugh we did even this year, and tried to bridge the distance in our minds. the apple jam turned out perfect, a beautiful recipe from a lady i'll never forget. the honey cake was a bit dry but tasty, our first try. i decided i had to make something new and truly iraqi jewish, so kubbah was attempted. the dumplings of semolina and rice flour with chicken mince stuffing were a little hard, but the three other people at the table seemed not to care. 

 

like every year, i spent a lot of time pondering the sarees i'd wear on the first and second nights of rosh hashanah. 

i chose a filmy and buoyant lime green chanderi for the first night, which i'd found thanks to social media (another strange coinage), namely whatsapp, at ayaz bhai's shop in the town of chanderi in madhya pradesh. 

chanderi, with that zingy happy sound, was an important town in the trade routes spreading across india and beyond in the 11th century, and so wealth grew here, and weaving flourished, this typical gauzy fine fabric... now you see it now you don't. beauty.

on the second night, i'd wear a heavily embroidered black saree made by sarbari dutta, the well known designer, a dear friend of my aunt and uncle's. starting out in her late forties, she brought life and colour and artistry and fun to men's dressing. particularly to the traditional indian look for men which hadn't changed in centuries. embroidered peacocks strutted about dhotis, kurtas were embellished with chain stitched egyptians, minute kañtha work made a staid jacket striking. the black dhoti made an entry. who said dhotis had to be white?

black, she had said, when i requested her to make another saree for me. she had still not started doing women's fashion commercially, an exception for her friends and their saree mad nieces. 

for all the embroidery work, she drew the motifs and stories by hand, each one, right onto the fabric. skilled artisnas would then do the needle work on the drawings. sarbari dutta passed away suddenly a couple of days before rosh hashanah. i wanted to remember her. the saree fell svelte and confident as i wore it.

an ancient unstitched garment and time honoured traditions, they both wrap memories in their fold... and surely even the secrets of making society, of living as humans on this planet, of surviving. 

strange i should think so, for i've never been a great one for traditions, always a little impatient with rituals and customs. the new, what's to come, beckon me. 

but as i took a bite of the syrup-coated apple and the aroma of cardamom got really socially undistanced with my nose, as i felt the lightness of a flippant lime chanderi about me, as we said may our enemies be decimated and may our good deeds be as plentiful as the seeds of a pomegranate, maybe i felt we'll get through this, cloddish coinage notwithstanding.

 

 

wrote this on september 30, 2020.

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sarees tell stories | lime green chanderi from ayaz ansari, facebook page handloom karigar, 2020. black bishnupuri silk by sarbari, around 2009.

 

 

 

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chanderi in madhya pradesh where gossamer light cotton and silk are woven by hand

bishnupur in bankura, west bengal, produces rich, soft silk. the black saree is a bishnupuri silk embroidered by artisans based near kolkata.

 maps courtesy uploaders.

my photos credit ferolyn fernandez

 

 

 

a madhubani saree or two

 

my aunt said, "shall i get a madhubani saree made for you?"

i was intrigued, madhubanis were paintings, weren't they? with endless little lines, geometric figures, krishna, radha, peacocks, flowers, faces with elongated eyes, deer, forest... fine lines and bright colours. how do you make a saree of that?

madhubani pieces are fairly commonplace or at least they used to be. i am not talking of extremely intricate pieces, it's the more basic ones, often in black/green/red and maybe blue that you see in government emporiums, handicraft fairs, even framed in hotels and offices. folk art, found everywhere. i'd never really spared them much thought. they are there, part of the scene, intriguing in a way perhaps but mostly taken for granted, at least by me.

i'd of course not imagined they could have anything to do with something i wore. my aunt, who runs a boutique and often makes wonderful sarees and other things for me, could sense my hesitation over the phone. she decided to take matters in hand and told me she'd get one made and send it across.

a couple of months later the saree arrived. she'd chosen a tussar, the body was a shade of muted red, the border and pallu had been left unbleached, and on that ran detailed madhubani work in black and deep red with kundan sparkling here and there. across almost nine yards went the five-inch wide border and the circular centre piece on the pallu was at least two and a half feet across with additional work along the edges. a fabulous richness about the saree.

madhubani is a district in the north of bihar along the border with nepal. this region was once part of the kingdom of mithila. madhubani art is said to have started thousands of years ago... some say when king janak asked the women of mithila to decorate the palace for his daughter sita's wedding with ram.

initially, the women who gave shape to this art form, painted motifs from daily life on walls, stylising them to give madhubani, or mithila painting, its distinctive look. 

over time, new motifs and figures were added; each thing of course means something and is often symbolic. fish, for instance, signifies fertility and luck, peacocks indicate romantic love... while living in southern bihar, now jharkhand, i remember seeing intricately painted huts in santhal villages. that too was possibly influenced by the work of these folk artists. even now, most madhubani artists are women.

my aunt tells me these sarees are painted in narpati nagar in madhubani district. thick nibs, about twice the size of normal pen nibs, are used to create these patterns. earlier, the ladies used only vegetable dyes, however of late they've switched to commercial colours as they seem to last longer. it takes between two and three months to make the sarees you see here.

i bought the onion pink tussar with madhubani border and pallu in black a couple of years later. two of my friends wanted similar sarees. others said they'd like theirs on crepe for a more swish fall. far away in bihar, possibly living in simple tenements and huts, the women artists were unfazed and came back with exactly what had been asked for.

who are these women i wonder at times. we call this an art form, yet no one knows the names of these creators... true, a few have been recognised and even travelled to other parts of the world to show their work, but that's just a handful of artists. is it just one woman who makes a saree, or do a few of them work together? how do they get this skill? do they have people to pass on their knowledge to? how do they draw with such intensity and sense of proportion… repeating motifs flawlessly; filling and perfecting instinctively. in today’s world, where the word art has us in a tizzy over the price of this painting or that, where art is “investment,” i wonder what $$$ these artists’ work would have commanded if the right marketeer got to it.

in a way, i am glad that's not happened. not everything should be valued only in cold hard cash, especially art. i hope the artists are paid well for their efforts though. 

aunt said, they do madhubani with gold paint these days, i had to ask, "so, where's mine?"

 wrote this on march 6, 2016

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sarees tell stories | madhubani sarees bought around 2008/09 from raya's boutique, 2/1/2 rakhal mukherjee road, kolkata 70025, phone +919874130648.

 

map courtesy uploader

 

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it happened this afternoon

a girl on a bicycle coming from the other direction, stopped in middle of the pavement and said, “my god, you’re all wearing sarees and walking down the road, you’re looking so good, it’s like someone’s modelling...” words to that effect. a young singaporean chinese girl, she was delighted. we gawked, then beamed. we were strolling down scotts on our way to various bus stops after lunch at the tanglin club, our disposable masks on thanks to covid 19. as i got onto 105, the chinese bus driver said from behind his mask, “aap kaisa hai?”... how are you. taken aback, i forgot my hindi and mumbled, “achha hai.” 

paisa wasool – worth every penny – saree wearing what.

 

 

 

 

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sarees tell stories | orange handspun odisha khadi tussar from vani vrtti, 2020. found this bengaluru based shop specializing in odisha weaves on instagram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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of real and fake and chanderi sarees

 

he loved vintage cars. every morning, practically, he'd come to look at his collection, which used to be kept in a garage built on land rented from my family. he always wore pristine, brilliant white pajamas and a flowing crisp kurta, his hair would be neatly brushed and the most pleasant smile would appear on his face if he happened to spot you or any of your elders.

"namashkar!" he'd greet in a low amicable tone, as he raised his hands high before him, palms joined. he'd let you go up close to his cars, even touch a shiny collectible surface if you wished to. he let some of us sit in one of his priceless automobiles once. he was the best tenant one could have and the most polite and decent man.

given the ironies of life, it really shouldn't have surprised anyone when he turned out to be not quite the man you thought he was. but all that came later.

much after his wife and he had gifted me my first chanderi saree. it was for my wedding and they'd chosen well. on a base of deep purple – it had a tinge of mocha brown in it – sat delicately woven dull gold motifs and an elegant restrained border in the same matte gold zari. the fabric was of the finest quality.

that perfect gossamer of chanderi, the wafting gauziness of it all... almost like a dream the fall. like a veil through which you look at memory.

i fussed endlessly about wearing the saree, even though i loved it. but when would i ever be thin enough to feel confident in a material so sheer? the struggle went on, the weight stayed put. i think i finally surrendered to temptation and wore the saree once, maybe twice. in time, it frayed and i had to let it go.

but a chanderi that belonged to my grandmother i couldn't throw away, even when it was in shreds. its pink is bright and playful, the contrasting blue border highlights the character of the main colour. intricate motifs in zari and a darker shade of pink traipse across the saree, its solid gold border shimmers.

as it tore in my hands, a world seemed to shift out of focus. i kept the borders, bits of the pink at the edges. some day, i think, some day, i'll go to chanderi and get someone to make a saree like that for me.

for centuries, possibly beginning in the eleventh – or who knows, maybe even earlier... or later – this delightful fabric of cotton and zari, and later silk, has been woven in the town of chanderi. 

picture courtesy uploader

situated between malwa and bundelkhand in central india, chanderi was part of the trade routes and became an important military outpost. it was fought over and ruled by many kings and conquerors. babur, allaudin khilji, and the rajputs, among them. 

it's mentioned in ibn batuta's travelogues, he went there in 1342, apparently. wonder if he wrote about the weavers and their fine product?

the lightweight cotton with its sheer transparency always startles me. 

something about its texture. 

hold it up and look through, a maze of patterns form on the threads, an optical illusion created by weave and play of light on it perhaps. and though chanderi was traditionally made with cotton only, it's never bothered to look anything but luxurious.

am talking of the real ones, not the fakes that have overtaken the market. there are a few designers and also shops like fabindia, that are getting quite serious about reviving and keeping alive the looms of chanderi. maybe fakes have their uses...

and now that i think, had the man in white been a good guy all the way, something would have certainly gone missing from my recollections of chanderi. when the twist in that tale came and he behaved in a way no one could have imagined, i raved and ranted, but i kept the saree.

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sarees tell stories | yellow chanderi from touch of class paithani, grey and silver chanderi from an exhibition in singapore, both bought in 2014.

 

posted this on writersbrew.com on august 5, 2016

 

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to wear a kasavu

what absolute fun to wear a kasavu saree at a wedding in kerala, the land of kasavu. it was december 2018, a dear school friend's daughter got married, for the haldi ceremony, the dress code was traditional south indian. if you'd like to find out more about these sarees, here's a saree from kerala.

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checks and no balance from chettinad

 

it was a couple of years ago i think, that a good friend of mine said, since i loved sarees so much we should go to chettinad together.

chettinad?

i was surprised. what did chettinad have to do with sarees? chettinad was about chicken with a distinct peppery taste, which no matter how many recipes i looked up on the net, i never seemed to get right. it was about food: spicy, aromatic, delicious. it was about the famous chettiars who travelled all over south east asia, trading, lending money, being merchant bankers, and brought back the tastes of those countries to their traditional food.

growing up in the north and east, i’d of course heard of cottons from south india. kanchi cotton, mangalgiri, coimbatore… but never chettinad. my friend smiled at my ignorance, and insisted, i had to see these beautiful handloom cotton sarees. women weaved them usually, and like many of our gorgeous weaving traditions, this too was struggling to survive. though efforts were on to revive it.

she also spoke of the palatial homes of the chettiars, with their magnificent art and architecture, grand belgian glass, italian marble, chandeliers and fine wood work. one had to see those too. in fact, one had to live in one of them. her friend’s family had converted their home to a hotel, as many were doing, so the plan was to go and stay there for a couple of days, eat real chettinad food – the vegetarian fare is fabulous as well, in fact, the chettiars were originally vegetarians i just read – and visit the weavers, buy lots of rich ethnic sarees.

even planning this gave me a high. then as happens with plans cooked up over a nice lunch, it didn’t really materialise. time passed. chandeliers swayed; pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and blue ginger were balanced by experienced hands; yarns were soaked in redolent earthy colours; another saree got woven. and every time my friend and i met, we averred, we must not forget to go on that trip.

a couple of weeks ago, i got a whatsapp message: nowadays have you noticed, how whatsapp messages seem to have hegemony over news of all kinds? from revolutions to religion to good morning wishes to jokes, the whatsapp message delivers all, and delivers them first. this time it was an ad for an exhibition… of chettinad sarees. 

a friend of mine, whom i met only once in a while, had sent it. her friends had been to chettinad, and were completely enamoured of the sarees; they were also moved by the plight of the weavers. so they had picked up a handful for sarees and were having a sale. they planned to help the weavers with the profits. since she knew i was sort of fond of sarees – ah, reputation, one must think what one would like to be remembered for – she had messaged me.

i was delighted and showed up early for the exhibition with the friend who had told me about these sarees in the first place. there weren’t too many pieces, but each one was beautiful. too few sarees, too many women… alas. i managed to grab a couple, even as i looked longingly at a few that had already found their takers.

the cotton was slightly coarse in some, finer in others. the colours were unguarded, full, and luscious. a quality of gem stones in them. there was a boldness in the sarees’ demeanour: checks all over in contrasting tones or simple single colour body, edged by border in an off beat, at times flamboyant, shade. well articulated patterns and motifs. a touch of gold here and there. or not. just unusual tones and the elegance of unfettered cotton. 

as i clutched my sarees and watched the video on the weavers and the mansions of karaikudi, the main city of chettinad, my mind wandered to streets and temples of singapore, and a story with diverse threads searched for its connections, its warp and weft.

after coming to singapore, i’d heard of the chettiars, a community from india, who were once mainly money lenders. they’d come here early on, soon after the british took over in 1819. they operated from shops on market street, chulia street, and neighbouring lanes. now of course, it’s all spiffy glass and concrete, and you don’t see the kittangis, where they lived and worked. living quarters upstairs, shops downstairs.

the chettiar sat on the floor in traditional wear of white cotton, with his sacred ash markings on the forehead, and his mind alert and sharp; before him a low wooden desk with books and other necessities. the chettiars were known for their financial acumen. the community though hadn’t always been money lenders, they were traders for centuries, dealing in salt, spices, and gem stones. later as the british expanded their trade interests in the region, the wealthy merchants turned to money lending and finance.

the chettiars came to singapore long before the big banks had arrived in the region. back then, they were perhaps the only people ready to offer a legitimate line of credit to small businesses, plantation owners, even larger enterprises. in a way, they were the first bankers and financiers around here.

the kittangis, those unique shop houses, had only men, for the itinerant merchants initially didn’t bring their families over. the sons accompanied their fathers once they were around eight or nine years old. and from that age onward they were gradually trained in matters of business in a sternly disciplined environment. 

while they lived away from their ancestral land, the chettiars used their considerable wealth to build beautiful and ostentatious homes there. so they are are often referred to as nattukottai chettiars or "people with palatial houses on the countryside" or nagarathars, city dwellers. looks like, the homes were mainly inhabited by the women of the family, where they in all likelihood perfected and embellished their distinctive cuisine while draped in these gorgeous cotton sarees, just right for that arid, hot part of tamil nadu.

a few years ago, when i went to the sri layan sithi vinayagar temple on keong saik street in the heart of chinatown, i learnt that the temple was built by the chettiars. one of the oldest hindu temples here, on tank road, was built by them in 1859. the chettiars were wealthy, they were hardworking, and they were highly religious. i had of course never connected sarees with these serious men in white.

on a walk in singapore, just off river valley road, i’d come across three roads named after three men of the community. obviously these were people of importance and they must have contributed something to this country to have been honoured so. today, the chettiars who live here are no longer money lenders, they are professionals in various fields, and highly regarded many of them. 

the chettinad sarees were getting slightly wrinkled in my hands as i thought about all these things, and women i barely knew smiled at each other and me as well, as we spoke of the karaikudi palaces, the houseproud aachis who cooked wonderful authentic dishes, the women who weaved, their needs, their artistry, their warmth, the weather, a different life far away, its only hint in the colours and fabric we all held close. 

some day, my friend and i must go on that trip, yes, we must.

 

 

 

my saree with one thousand aayiram or buttas/motifs within the checks.

  

 

 

picture courtesy uploader

 

 

the quintessential checks of chettinad sarees.

 

wrote this one on november 5, 2018.

 

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sarees tell stories | turquoise and navy checks with a purplish maroon border; and beige with a thousand red buttas and checks in red and turmeric with a plain turmeric border… two sarees from an exhibition in singapore, november 2018.

 

 

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i stopped wearing sarees

 

funny i should start a blog on sarees. for years i avoided sarees like the pl...  i was convinced i was too fat to wear them.

my mother, who was unabashedly of considerable girth, and was always in a saree, would laugh at me. she started wearing sarees at thirteen, and other than salwar kameez a few times as a teenager, she'd never worn anything but a saree since then.

she was so comfortable with it in fact, she'd wrap it around her in minutes... sitting on her bed. 

i am not exaggerating. 

at some point during this nifty operation, she'd raise herself to a half-standing position, and slip the pallu end languidly around her, then sit back adjusting the pallu so it fell gracefully across her body, and she was done.

all the while i'd be thinking, how, how, how is she even doing that?

she was as i said not exactly thin, but she never looked awkward or strange in a saree. same with my aunts, great aunts, and grandmothers. not everyone was large, but they weren't size zero either. 

so where had i got this idea that one had to be super slim to look good in a saree? i keep hearing a similar thing from my chinese friends, they insist you have to have a ramp model figure to wear a cheongsam. really? is this some conspiracy by some evil empire to do away with our natural, native attire? yet another way to occupy our minds? ok, i'm just kidding. 

don't get me wrong, i loved sarees even when i didn't wear them. what a tussle that was. i love you but door raho... stay far away from my sight. don't tempt me. let me wear my tent-like salwar kameez, my oversized shirts, and hide my less than perfect body.

my sarees stayed quietly waiting in the cupboard.

then one day, around the time my daughter was born, i was forty-one then, that i felt this feeling... i wanted to wear a saree. 

to h with size, fears, conventions.

i'd learnt to wear a saree when i was fifteen or sixteen. my aunt – my mamima, my mother's brother's wife – had taught me. she was a good teacher, she used a neat trick to flatten the edges and get a smooth look around the waist where you start drawing the saree up to wrap it for the final twist to the pallu. she was particular about pleating and from the first tuck to the last swish of the pallu, she instructed me to be aware and in control.

everyone all my life has said to me how well i wear my saree. it used to please me.

yet, i think i never owned my saree wearing.

never made it part of me.

i mean, would i sit on the bed and drape my beautiful saree?

so, after almost ten years, i started wearing sarees again. and buying them... oh, that was fun. i've stopped being too strict about every detail as i wear a saree. i relax and let it flow about me. i tuck and pull where i feel i need to, but i indulge the fabric as well believing it'll do its thing and make me look good.

the saree has still not become as everyday and part of self as it was for my mother, but it's getting there. my usual garb continues to be oversized shirts and long skirts, but every friday evening, i wear a saree. 

it's shabbath in our home, my husband and daughter are jewish... the perfect occasion and excuse to let six yards whirl about me and set the day aside from others. my version of friday dressing, you might say. i also take a picture of me all decked up.

we often view the saree as something special, only meant for occasions, if at all. even inconvenient. not contemporary. unwieldy.

it can be unwieldy till you get the hang of it, a bit inconvenient too maybe, but aren't the best things in life always a little difficult? 

as for contemporary, if you are, that's what counts.

i am planning to wear a svelte black patola this evening. going for a birthday dinner. no, i won't wear it sitting on my bed, but i will wear it quickly, happily, knowing it's part of me.

bought this patola from neeru kumar many years ago. clever, intricate, deft weave. back then, prices were not as crazy as they're now. i've worn it many times, and every time felt a thrill. i'm not sure whether it's a double or single ikat, must find out. the beige saree above... it was on the second night of passover this year that i wore it. a fine cotton saree, possibly south indian cotton, with a woven black border, and minutely detailed delicate lucknow chikan motifs all over, from fabindia, kolkata. i remember going back again and again to see it and finally justifying the price in my mind. what a relief. 

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sarees tell stories | beige cotton with chikankari from fabindia, kolkata, 2019. black patola from neeru kumar, mumbai, around 2004/5. 

 

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my photo credit ferolyn fernandez