it was black this friday : the friday saree

 

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.

 

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the friday saree index

sarees tell stories index

how many pleats? index

 

my photos credit ferolyn fernandez

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.

 

 

 

sarees tell stories index

the friday saree index

how many pleats? index

 

 

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