how many sarees do you have? what, you're buying more sarees? where will you where them? you've got to stop buying sarees you know...
has anyone told you such things? familiar, these words?
well, i don't blame well meaning friends and harried husband speaking their minds.
but really.
i don't have to wear sarees to love them. or... do i?
how it happened i can't exactly trace but somewhere along the way, the saree got so left out from the idea of dressing up.
i've never not liked or loved sarees, though it never became my daily dress as it was for my mother and grandmothers. yet for occasions, for special anything, i'd wear a saree. in fact, i'd wear a saree to work when i was twenty one, battling crowded buses, pothole filled roads, the heat and dust and grime of calcutta.
and yet, i lost touch with sarees. the need to wear them waned.
about twenty years ago, it all came surging back, happily.
but where would i wear sarees, here in singapore? okay, sometimes to work maybe. and then? wait for occasions? would the twenty new sarees in my cupboard be able to hold their drama till then?
then it struck me.
i have an occasion every week. in my own home.
shabbat.
my husband and daughter are jewish. along with my brother in law, we observe shabbat every friday evening at home. we all get together and have shabbat dinner. good food is made, alcohol imbibed, we chat and relax, bread is broken, wine blessed, prayers and song fill the evening, plates are filled and emptied, the evening flows by.
shabbat, which means seven in hebrew, is a day to be set aside from the rest of the week. it is a sacred day, the day when after creating everything, god rested. wonderful, i thought, as i pondered this. my way of marking this day... i'll wear a saree every friday.
it's perhaps one of the best thoughts i've ever had. i am grinning as i write that.
this friday, february 4, 2022, i wore a fabulously embroidered black silk from bishnupur in west bengal. it's designed by the tremendously talented sharbari dutta. sadly, she passed away suddenly a couple of years ago. she had made this saree for me, as she knows my uncle and aunt and also about my love of sarees. usually, she designed men's clothes only, for she felt not enough had been done in that area in the context of indian fashion.
every motif on that saree is drawn by her. the chain stitch is fine and detailed. the colours are balanced and surprising... that sudden violet. there's a playful note in the execution.
a saree i've worn many times and it has never failed to delight.
the last time i wore this saree,
it was new year in the jewish calendar.
..............................
my photos credit ferolyn fernandez
