iron nails and camel dung

 

the more i look at the saree, the more it wraps me in thoughts. random ones that i can’t arrange beautifully like the profusion of hand printed patterns on it.

 

i want to write a simple piece, i mutter to myself… about those nails and camel dung, but i can’t stop the steady stream of images and words: shadowy memories of things heard far away in the past, and some just the other day. cotton trade, american civil war, indigo revolt… neel bidroho, east india company, slavery, justice, sassoon docks, farmer suicides.

and jostling with these: beauty, artistry, heritage, craftsmanship, inventiveness… desert, earth, sun, river, an aura of indestructibility.

 

i touch the saree, its raw, not-machined feel, the rich deep indigo base allowing just the bit of colour through that’s needed to see the patterns in red, black, and dull white. the colours seem to like each other, nothing standing out too much, calling attention to itself. layers of patterns mesh and mingle; ancient motifs, something tells you. i’m surprised by the thickness of the fabric, but not its sturdy ruggedness; feels like integrity. the kind only pure, handloom cotton has.

the cotton crop has failed again, at least eleven farmers have committed suicide in telengana barely a couple of weeks ago. my malkha sarees, this is one of them, came from the same part of the country. a dear friend picked them up in october, from malkha’s shop in hyderabad. i’d read somewhere, the name malkha combines “malmal” and “khadi”.

malmal. you instantly think of softness. of something fine and gentle. of your mother’s sarees and pretty dupattas, and a song. there’s not much in the indian experience that hindi cinema hasn’t written lyrics on, so why not this dreamy airy fabric. “hawa mein udta jaaye mora laal dupatta malmal ka…” from the 1949 film barsaat, traipses through my mind. to translate terribly: goes flying in the breeze, red scarf of malmal mine.

 

credit: uploader

and khadi, the handspun cotton i’ve loved since i was i don’t know how old. an assertion of freedom and self reliance, a cotton yarn and a simple unpretentious cotton cloth. i have always liked the class-free temper of khadi. the farmer wears it, the shopkeeper, the rickshaw puller, the intellectual, the politician, the apolitical, the doyenne of the cocktail circuit, the cool d.u. (delhi university) student, the behen ji, the communist leaning actor, the superstar, the journalist, the lyricist, the freedom fighter, the everyday ordinary human being like me.

i liked the name malkha. i liked whatever i read about it on the net. and suddenly, i had to have a saree from malkha. my friend was most cooperative, she bought me not just one, but three sarees, and one of them was a gift.

malkha is an attempt to bring just practices to the business of growing, weaving, and selling cotton. they don’t shun technology, but they stay away from technology that isn’t really needed in this trade, like power looms. india has woven textiles for millennia, long long before the industrial revolution and the big machines came; though yes, the camel dung was always there, and some iron that would rust; but really, why would we throw away all the knowledge and the striking quality of handspun fabric and replace it with mundane machine milled stuff? okay, you want to bring in new tech, get all worldly wise and flaunt your progress, export, have more choice, fine… but why not keep what you’re ridiculously good at and which feeds millions and millions (no exaggeration) of people, and give it the place, the policies, the price it deserves.

so that farmers don’t have to die. weavers’ kids don’t have to tell their parents, there’s not enough money in this, so off i go to seek my livelihood elsewhere. the artistry of the weaver, the spinner, the ginner, the dye maker, the block maker, the pattern creator, doesn’t have to wither away.

the saree that’s making me wonder about things is a block printed one, an ajrakh. started hearing this word quite recently, maybe a year or so ago, the art though is ancient. ajrakh might refer to the arabic word for blue, azraq, and since one of the main colours used is indigo, this might be true. it may even mean “keep it today” as in “aaj rakh”. ajrakh is a tradition from sindh; you see it on scarves, turbans, stoles, it’s given as a token of respect, it’s part of life.

 

back in the sixteenth century, my flip through the net tells me, the khatri community moved to kutch in the north west of gujarat and started using locally available dyes and other material to make the prized ajrakh. khatris are muslims. i feel pretty certain the story of blue will take us to connections with many old traditions and people. for the jews i know blue has great significance, and if you see the pottery of turkey, morocco, the middle east, also the evil eye, its blue in all its shades everywhere. “neel” is blue in bengali, it’s the word for indigo as well, the plant. neel always reminds me of oppression and injustice and greed, of farmers exhausted and poor, and dying; of farmers finally revolting against the british planters in bengal.

 

ajrakh came into being long before all that. before the british came to india. before slaves were brought from africa to america to grow cotton. before the american civil war started to create problems of cotton supply to britain’s textile mills, and so other sources of cotton had to be found. before sir david sassoon moved to bombay from baghdad for jews were being harassed by daud pasha. before his company set up western india’s first commercial wet docks in 1875. before the sassoon docks helped “establish the cotton trade” between india and britain. before the hunger for wealth made cotton barons kill off most varieties and go for only the kind the machines in manchester or wherever could handle. before the power loom came into existence. before khadi became a movement and malmal dupattas flew in a song. before i fell in love with sarees.

in ajrakh printing, the cloth is first washed in water then comes the process of “saaj”, when it’s submerged in a solution of castor oil, soda ash, and camel dung overnight. it’s dried the next day in the sun and then… returned to the camel dung solution. the process of soaking and drying is repeated a few times. till the cloth is ready to be washed and put into mordants that fix the colours. why the camel dung? no idea. but there is some pretty good reason i am sure.

as i read about ajrakh printing, i am gaping at the inventiveness. how did these guys work out the various aspects of this technique? how do you figure out, for instance, that by fermenting scrap iron, jaggery, and gram flower, then taking the liquid or “iron water” and mixing it with tamarind seed powder, you’ll get the colour black?

ajrakh involves several steps. colour isn’t printed on cloth directly, instead a resist paste is block printed onto the material and then the cloth is dyed. this is repeated with different blocks and dyes till the final patterns and colours are in place. it’s complicated and relies on deep knowledge, innate skills, the right kind of sun, earth, water, and of course, cotton. spock, i’m sure, would have said, “fascinating!”

spock?

there goes my mind again, a bit red dupattaish today.

referred to material from these websites: travels in textiles, gaatha, malkha. 

an article in the hindu about malkha and weavers.

blue of indigo, red of madder.

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wrote this piece on ajrakh on november 28, 2017 in writersbrew.

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sarees tell stories | the indigo ajrakh cotton, the blue and white and the grey kalamkari printed cottons (in the image with three sarees) from malkha, hyderabad, bought/gifted october 2017. the other blue ajrakh in that image may not be the real thing, just a nice print, from a fair in singapore.

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on a slow, blurry morning.

 

 

peculiarly light and airy feeling as i throw the chanderi on the bed and place a black silk blouse on it. black and white, no… black and off white. creases and crush as nothing is ironed. so what though, still looks rather wonderful.

it’s been a fuzzy headed morning. not enough sleep, and now two consecutive days of dressing up. i know since i started a whole blog on sarees and plaster it with my shots in sarees, one might be forgiven for thinking i love decking up.

i do. but only once in a while. say once a month. two days in a row, my brain is longing for grunge.

but the off white chanderi calls. it seems to know my state of mind. “what blouse?” i mutter to myself. “why not black,” says the chanderi. “no, not the one with zardosi neckline. just plain black.”

 

i’d worn my mother’s pearl necklace last night. that and its matching earrings were the only jewellery my mother kept with herself. she’d wear them once in a way if there was a dinner party or even a wedding in assam, where we lived in a tiny oil township called duliajan when i was growing up. the rest of her jewellery remained in a locker in calcutta, for family weddings she’d take out a couple of things at times. otherwise, the bank of india vault by deshapriya park kept all the glitter embraced in its cold steel heart. 

 

the pearls with their kundan ornaments, the brightness of my mother touches me when i slip the necklace on. maybe i’ll wear it again today. and just plain pearl bangles, made when i got married nearly forty years ago, with pearls my grandmother had kept for many years.

“what say?” i ask the gauzy one.

“not bad,” comes the nod from the chanderi, along with a golden wink. is it acquiring a singaporean tone? how wannabe, it’s just arrived here.

“what earrings?” i mutter.

my mind goes blank again.

 

 

 

 

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sarees tell stories | off white chanderi saree from handlooms karigar based in the town of chanderi, madhya pradesh. bought in 2022.

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i see i started with "peculiarly". my mother used to say "peculiar" often... i can almost see her looking at me writing this and murmuring it with that glint in her eyes. 

 

 

 

 

 

throwing on some deep think: the friday saree

 

 

something is slipping away, and it's not just the pleats of the saree between my fingers. i realise as i go through things in life, it's not about how fat you are or how thin (oh, i've worried about that a lot), or how much or little money you have (no, really), how big or small your house is, what grades you or your kids got in school, what people said or didn't say about you, whether you travelled the world or not. no, none of these and a zillion other things we allow much space in our thoughts... no, none. it's really about the people in your life. those you love, to be precise.

it's all there. in just that.

i've watched many of these people go. and with each one, something has slipped away, never to be caught back and made part of my life as i live. with them maybe some of me has gone too. 

why such mutterings on a post about a saree i wore last friday for shabbat? i guess i felt the yards of silk slipping around me, and along came these thoughts.

some of me has gone no doubt, but there's more coming along.

a me i have no knowledge of, nor have met before.

the languid layers of phyllo pastry lying supine amid liberal brushings of oil wink at me. "who'd have thought you'd want to make baklava one day!" they seem to say with an amused air.

almonds, walnuts, pistachios get crushed and entangled with surprise.

cardamom, cinnamon, lemon, honey, and sugar simmer and saunter into my memory bank. 

the sharp edge of the knife plunges into the pastry and cuts diamonds that will be forever.

 

 

as i make the baklava i think, i guess there have to be cuts and deep wounds for sweetness to pour all the way in. i am making our first ever baklava with one of those wondrous people whom it's really about. she slipped into my life when i least expected it. she gives me the courage to try untried worlds, to find what else is out there, and take the next step forward even though i may trip on my pleats.

 

i'd never have bought a green and yellow checked saree with shocking pink and purple borders. but this gadwal was fated to be mine. came to me through a mistake... am i grateful for mistakes. you can read that story here.

  

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sarees tell stories | gadwal silk from abhihaara social enterprise, hyderabad, bought 2020. you can find them on instagram @abhihaara

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pleats held aloft

 

i’d woken up crying that morning. i must have been fourteen at the time. those days, i was staying with my grandparents in delhi, while my parents were in england for a couple of years. 

the cause of the barrage of tears was a dream, if one can call it that. in it my mother was there, but she was slim and wearing a skirt.

i can never quite adequately explain how scary that was, how alien, how… could such a thing happen. even if it hadn’t occurred in reality.

i wept so much, my grandmother had to make a fairly expensive trunk call to my mother, and i think it was only after i spoke to her that i calmed down. somewhat. 

why was i in such a state? well, to me, mother meant large, and saree. i’d never seen her in anything else ever. and i couldn’t even conceive of her as shapely or svelte. she was voluminous contours, generous girth, all botero, absolute comfort and security. when i buried my face against her my skin touched her saree, a thousand storms couldn’t knock her down, she was safety. and she was far away. imagine my plight at being struck by that vision as i slept, defences down. 

a skirt? she wore a parrot green and orange kanjeevaram to the jung frau in the alps. there’s a shot of her at the ice museum, in fact, if any proof is needed. frilly large cotton nighties that many mothers had started wearing as we grew up, or salwars, churidars, lehengas… my mother wore none of them. she was always in a saree, casually thrown on, with a blouse of another colour because she couldn’t be bothered getting matching ones, no attempt to be fashionable whatsoever, graceful without trying to be so.  

her two years in the uk had her taking buses and tubes, the last time she’d tackled public transport was in college, she managed with aplomb in her saree. only compromise, instead of handloom or printed cottons and kotas or silks that she usually liked to wear, she switched to mostly printed synthetics. can’t say they were good to look at, but they were convenient. actually, back in college too it was sarees. she told me she started wearing them when she was thirteen, a year younger than i was on the night of the bawling dream.  

of late, i find myself wondering whether i should start wearing a saree every day. maybe all the time. like ma used to. the thought does drift by every now and then and sets me mulling. 

my lovely grandmother, who called ma that day and made sure i was ok even as my “nightmare” brought on much mirth in the family, also wore a saree all the time. as did my other grandmother.  

images of crisp taañt or handloom cottons, usually white, worn the bengali “shadha sheedhe” / plain and simple way, float by. my mother’s mother wore silks or nylons (very in back in the sixties and seventies) when she stepped out. then she preferred the pleats-in-front, pallu-over-left-shoulder way of wearing the saree. my father’s mother stuck to the shadha sheedhe style everywhere. i remember how deftly both grandmothers tucked their sarees. a couple of swishes and voila. 

though my mother wore sarees from the time she was considered grown up – tradionally, you ceased to be a child at thirteen i guess in many cultures (okay, i’m rolling my eyes, this whole thing needs much discussion) – she didn’t ever insist that i do the same.  

as a child, for some festivals i wore sarees, but really hardly ever. somewhere along the way, when i was around twenty, i started wearing them more often. over the years, i’ve been through a bit of a love-hate relationship with this taken for granted garment. currently, it’s love. but things might change any time. 

so, why do i ponder whether i should wear a saree every day? perhaps i want to step into that circle where my mother sits with her arch smile. where my grandmother’s eyes are gentle as they spot me, and my other grandmother reads her mahabharata quietly. their sarees wrap around them snug and comforting. soft and lucid. 

should i just go ahead and do it?  

well, maybe not. at least, not right now. my pants and loose shirts are still me. so are the long skirts, the block printed tops, the occasional gharara or mekhela or  something else, and of course the fading cotton nighties (nightmare inducing for some). 

for now, let’s just wear a saree when i feel like it. as i did this passover. the first night was on a shabbat. we were in london. it was cold. we had to walk back home late at night after the seder. i wear slight heels with my sarees, but walking on them is tough on my knees, and this would be a forty-five minute trudge. i wore a saree anyway, and ditched the heels too. at five foot nothing that is an act of sheer courage. 

my daughter donned a cool black dress and didn’t have to hold her pleats aloft in a tight grip as we plodded home at 3am, wrapped in sweaters and coats. who knows, maybe some day she’d want to…  

there i go dreaming again.

 

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sarees tell stories | maroon fine tangail saree with peach motifs, unusual four leaf clover motif, from meera basu, kolkata, bought around 2008.

 

 

 

first night of passover was on a shabbat, a friday.

 

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looking at a saree on a tired evening: the friday saree

 

 

 

it's been one of those weeks, when by the time it's friday evening, i am almost passing out with mental hyper acrobatics, mind in a stupor practically. but something stops it from shutting down.

got to choose a saree. it's friday evening.

i dragged myself to the cupboard and opened the door with weary hands. my tired gaze wandered over the stacks of fabric, nothing registered, all was a mass of colours.

when i felt my hand reach out even before my eyes saw the saree. how does that happen? i don't know. but it does. it did. maybe it was the colour. 

oh, what a red.

i felt my drooping shoulders lift. yes, that saree...or... maybe?.. 

what blouse, i heard my mind murmur to me.

a fine silk from sonepur in odisha, with the simple ek phulia motif and delicate ikkat or bandha on the pallu. bought it two years ago for my sixtieth birthday because my father was born in odisha, in sambalpur. the other birthday saree came from benaras, where my mother was born, it's what i'm wearing on the banner of this blog... will take nice shots and write about my sixtieth birthday sarees some day. i looked at the saree again.

i tried to resist, since i was not in a compliant mood. but the red would have none of it.

 

 

sonepur ikkat of odisha from a lovely shareer dokan (ok ok saree shop) called vani vrtti.

 

 

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photos credit ferolyn fernandez

in a pink nylon saree

it was my maternal uncle’s wedding. may 1966. i was six, my cousins between four and ten. we were five of us girls i think. we were all going to attend the wedding in calcutta and then go to delhi for the reception. my grandmother, always generous, fun, a bit over the top as grandmothers really ought to be, decided to get nearly identical lehengas and sarees made for us.

the lehengas were in red silk with green cholis and red floaty odhnis, lots of shimmery gold zari all over.

the sarees were in various shades of pink. pink nylon… from a calm poised rose to a bright unstinting gulabi. and they had shiny gota work all over. ribbons of silver zari had been cut and trimmed and appliquéd in a pretty pattern on the slippery material; the silver with its cool tinsel sheen and the pink so smooth and ice cream like. they were little girls’ sarees, much shorter in both length and width than regular ones.

rajasthan is well known for gota work, my grandmother had had the sarees made in jaipur, where my grandfather’s younger brother and his wife lived. i will never forget that gaudy happy saree of mine. to me it was beautiful, absolutely perfect; in fact, now that i think of it, i wish i still had it. stays in my mind, its touch, its colour, its pattern, its gota dazzle, the springy feel of nylon.

it was my first “good saree”. not that i had a serious collection of sarees by the age of six, i did have one other saree though. a yellow cotton, which i’d worn for saraswati puja that year. children would often wear sarees for the puja dedicated to the goddess of learning. yellow being the preferred colour, though exactly why i have no idea.

but the pink and silver saree was my hot favourite. i wore it many times after my uncle’s wedding, finding all sorts of excuses to throw it on. i was also convinced i looked impossibly beautiful in it. to the credit of all those who suffered my self obsession, no one damaged my fantasy, quite happily letting me believe, yes, indeed i was gorgeous in pink sparkly nylon.

nylon. slippery and synthetic. can’t say i like the fabric at all. in the sixties though, this human made material was not only in, it may have even been a sign of a contemporary woman, one with a mind of her own even, daring to try new ideas, not just traditional silks and cottons. i don’t know if i read that right, but my mother, maternal aunts, and grandmother often wore nylon sarees; and they were all women with a modern bent of mind, tough, hard to rein in… ha. maybe that’s why i feel nylon sarees said something about the wearer’s personality. there was a very pretty one of my grandmother’s, base off white, tiny rose buds printed all across.

as i write, a thought comes along. was it my my pink nylon gota saree that was responsible for two things in more recent years?

first, when my mother turned seventy, we had a party for her and i was keen to pick up a dhakai for both of us. so i went to this lady from whom i’ve been buying dhakais for years, i chose a lovely black and white one for my mother and then my eyes fell on a pink and silver saree. i couldn’t look away.

this strawberry ice cream hued fine cotton with silver zari glittering on it… i just could not look away. i forgot my age, i forgot my million inhibitions, i had to buy it.

wore it the very next day with a blouse that didn’t match… ten years on, when the saree frayed, i sent desperate whatsapp messages to the lady, with pictures; and very kindly, she had one more made for me. almost the exact same shade.

of course, in the meantime i’d bought another one in pink, just in case this couldn’t be replicated. and i notice, i find it very hard, extremely so in fact, to stay sane when i see a pink saree. plenty of new gulabis suddenly in my cupboard. maybe as i age, a part of me is suddenly racing back, trying to pick up something from back then. catching a gota shine and dragging it here.

second, when my daughter was about six years old, i asked a dear aunt of mine, who has her own boutique, to make a saree for my daughter. there was a wedding in the family. my aunt made a wonderful saree. no, not in nylon. it was a rich blue tussar, embroidered all over, with border and pallu in… pink.

 

would like to thank a friend of mine, for reminding me of our first sarees and how a girl looks all grown up when she gets into a saree.

 

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sarees tell stories | pink dhakai from sumitra sengupta, calcutta, 2017; pink printed tussar from toontooni, calcutta, 2017; pink rajkot patola from design & drama, calcutta 2016; blue and pink tussar from raya’s boutique, calcutta, 2007.

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i feel silly smiling at the phone: the friday saree

 

 

this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...  i don't like being photographed. i am awkward in front of a camera, don't know what to do with my hands, worry i'll look like a gargoyle, feel under pressure, and most inconfident. and it's really silly to smile at the phone.

yet, every friday, after i wear the saree, i go and do just that. how much i've smiled at this rectangular object with no feelings. and poor ibi, the indefatigable cook, who with an impassive face bears all my frazzled posing, takes a hundred shots so i can choose two or three, never complains. in fact, every now and then chirpily says, "smile." 

why do i do it? how can i not, when i've worn a saree? here are a few friday sarees from the last couple of months.

 

think this is the first narayanpet i've bought for myself. the silk is light and falls gently, a whisper against the skin. abhihaara in hyderabad is a society of weavers, always feels good to get a saree from there. 

5 november, 2021.

 

a saree from odisha, bought years ago, not black, a deep bottle green. is this a sambalpuri silk? might be. 

12 november, 2021.

 

i'd never heard of kunbi sarees till a friend from goa mentioned them. i searched the internet looking for them, found a facebook page, they had a whatsapp number, we chatted, and i had my first kunbis. slightly thick cotton sarees, with their trademark simplicity, so basic and honest, you've got to respect them. they fit in with a community's way of life. tough sarees, not at all afraid the heat and dust. 

19 november, 2021. 

a favourite odisha saree from a lovely young textile designer's shop... vani vrtti. she calls this ananta, a take on flowing water, the pallu has signs of water life. the tussar yarn is rich and soft, hand spun by the women of the area. 

26 november, 2019.

 

a gossamer light cotton chanderi from, of course, chanderi. such a stroke of luck finding ayaz bhai, who'll show you chanderis on a video call, pulling out sarees from almirahs in one room of their house. nearby, his sister in law, bhabi, might be weaving a fine simmering saree. 

10 december, 2021.
 

a patola from rajkot. for some reason, i thought it was an odisha bandha, i was wrong. the colour is sleek and the saree falls like a deep sigh. 

17 december, 2021.

a saree from at least thirty years ago, tangerine and peach, thick rich cotton, a nuapatna ikkat from odisha, has a cool demeanour. 

24 december, 2021.

a jet black soft silk with wonderful kañtha embroidery in browns and creams, i flipped the pallu and wore it somewhat gujarati style, maybe a little parsi too. last evening of the year, mark it. 

31 december, 2021.

first shabbat of the year, i wore this leisurely cotton from odisha, ikkat, not sure from which area exactly, but it's a subtle play of shades, someone said it matched the table cloth, i said, good. obviously in a brown mood me. 

7 january, 2022.

a mekhela sador in cotton, from assam, not a saree really, yet anything with the elements of pallu and pleats, feels like one. that flyaway tucked end of the sador adds such a playful note. sassy, even. 

14 january, 2022.

when i heard, the tata group, known for its steel plants, cars, software engineering, watches, hotels, etc., were starting a saree shop, i was taken aback. i almost laughed, the idea was so funny. but i'm glad they did. some very interesting sarees at taneira. this one i saw on their instagram account and fell for the story. tussar sarees embroidered by a group of rabadi women in bhuj who had seen the terrible earthquake, the embroidery expresses their emotions of that experience... simple motifs of homes, waves, children, the sun... survivors drawing strength from their craft. consummate needle work, bright colours, you'd never guess they were speaking of trauma. 

21 january, 2022.

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photos credit ferolyn fernandez

muga and memories

 

 

there were always butterflies to chase after and try and catch; powdery colour left behind on your fingers as the winged one found a way to escape your clutches. not just the usual yellow and white butterflies. they were blue and black, brown with large eye like patterns, some had purple streaks, some ornate wings with frilly edges. in the reserve forest there were many more. and there were moths too. big ones, tiny ones, in the house, in the garden, black, brown, greyish white, part of life. sometimes, you caught a caterpillar and kept it in a jar to see what happens. invariably mine turned out to be a moth.

growing up in assam, i took the jungle for granted, and also the garden. butterflies, orchids, lizards rushing off leaving their tails and eggs, frogs croaking at night, machranga the kingfisher poised above the water, fireflies glowing green in the dark or in your cupped palms, snakes coiled by the side of the road as you walked past trying not to look that way, an egret sitting still on a buffalo's head; roses, marigolds, gerbera, phlox in a profusion of colours, dahlias, nasturtium, begonia, dog flowers you squeezed to make the "dog" bark, nectar at the tip of the stamens you'd pulled out of the pretty ixora, pale white magnolia in the moonlight, bamboo bending.

lawns with thick bladed grass, tea bushes rolling along gently undulating land, tall sparse shade trees, water hyacinth covered puddles and ponds along the way. moths, so many kinds of them. who'd have thought the dour dull moths could bring about such beauty.

 

of course, i knew muga. the mekhelas in muga with red and black embroidery that everyone seemed to wear. especially during bihu. i didn't know it was a silk. nor that it was a wild silk, and a very rare one at that. i just liked the look of the fabric and the sound of the word. muga, no idea what it meant, but it seemed cool.

muga is made from the larva of a moth that is found only in assam, the assam silkmoth or antharaea assamensis. the assamese word for yellowish is muga. but it's not really yellow, more golden sheen, and deeply molten. for centuries and more, muga has been made in this part of the world. i read somewhere, muga with its natural golden colour, durable and lustrous, has been mentioned in kautilya's arthashastra, even the rig ved.

in 1228, a tai prince from yunnan province in china, came and settled down in the brahmaputra valley. he was accompanied by people from his land; prince sukaphaa established the ahom kingdom. the ahom are the descendants of the tai, often from marriages with local people. the ahom kings loved muga, can't blame them, so the silk became valuable and much cherished; its production grew. my history is not sound, this is straight from the net. what i do know is, assam has a different take on beauty, a deep indigenous aesthetic. one that's rich with the sweetness and texture of its natural surroundings. i look at the motifs, and there are the flowers, the birds, the lions and tigers, sometimes angular and geometric, though languid curves abound as well, little signatures of assam in weave.

in duliajan, where we lived, many of the assamese families had looms in their homes. weaving was an art most women learnt, much like knitting or embroidery. for weddings, births, and even everyday use, mekhelas and sarees would be woven by the women of the household. there is an intimacy with the cloth that is worn around here. maybe nowadays, many don't weave at home any longer, but i'm sure they have carefully kept away pieces that were made for them especially, for an occasion.

muga was never cheap, now it's very expensive. production hasn't grown much and there is demand, both at home and overseas. since 2007, muga silk is protected by geographical identification or gi as it's known; it's officially recognised as belonging to the state of assam. even so, pure muga is hard to find.

muga and tussar are mixed, if you aren't familiar with the fabric, you'd find it difficult to tell the difference. tussar is beautiful too, but it's not muga. it doesn't shine with a natural gold. nor does it last that long. almost thirty-five years ago, my mother bought me a phulia tangail with muga yarn checks on cotton. it was fashionable at the time i think, the rage during that year's durga puja maybe: tangail with muga highlights. i wore the saree the other day, still not frayed, still shimmering. i took the phone very close to capture the shimmer.

really, how come this silk has that natural gold tint?

i have a couple of muga sarees, one of them feels authentic, the other i don't know. at present i'm busy pestering a friend in assam to get me a pure muga mekhela. have taken the madness a step further, planning a trip to assam after almost forty years, have another friend there, a senior officer in the government. she says she'll take us to the right place for muga. wonder if the butterflies are still as colourful in assam, and if there are snakes, and was one of my moths an antharaea assamensis. before i go, the brahmaputra, did you know, is the only male river in our land. my father used to say that.

wrote this on sepember 14, 2017. that trip to assam still pending. this time a pure muga mekhela surely.

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sarees tell stories | muga with orange and black motifs from sampa's boutique, calcutta, around 2006; muga with red and black motifs bought from a friend in 2004; muga and cotton tangail from calcutta, 1982/83.

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