saree aunty: sarees tell stories

Monday, September 26, 2022

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.

Friday, August 5, 2022

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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Wednesday, May 11, 2022

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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Friday, March 11, 2022

a saree for mr jobs

the mind is a messy place. nothing comes to it in a simple clear way. thoughts rush or meander or just walk by aimlessly, sometimes they crash, they burn, then again thoughts and more thoughts.

i am sitting here this morning, staring at my computer screen, letting this ride of thoughts go on. not that i can stop it. i am perhaps lonely, a little disturbed. something from last evening lingers. a tremor in the brain, in the heart. i want my mind to focus, think of something that is of use, that has a direction.

should i write about sarees? always engages my mind. i am staring at the computer screen. an imac.

was it 1991 or 1992 that i saw a computer that said hi to me? bangalore, my first job as a copywriter. a big bulky computer on my desk. first time such a machine anywhere near me. press f1, press f2... green type on black screen. a little stodgy. wordpress? think it was called that, the software.

every once in a way, a call to the mac room. an airconditioned cubicle with glass all around, where the macs sat and only those who were allowed to touch them were allowed entry. not lowly new copywriters. not usually.

only when some copy corrections had to be made and the superior beings who were in communion with the mysterious machines needed that pointless thing called copy changed, and they wouldn't deign to do such menial tasks, were writers given access. of course, you had to take your shoes off before entering this hallowed precinct. it's a miracle we weren't barred from exhaling.

i walked in, i remember, and the boss of the mac room with his usual surly expression, nodded towards a tiny computer in the corner, next to one of the splendid large ones with magical colours on the screen. it was a small but tall machine, not the usual rectangular shape, horizontal longer than vertical. was the other way round. i was told to switch it on, i dutifully must have.

the screen came on... grey. then a little computer appeared on it. a line drawing. a word popped up. hi.

a computer had just greeted me. not a computer. no. a mac.

why do i remember this so well? did i break into a smile? that first meeting with the mac? it was a a mac se i think, just read se means "system expansion". or was it a compact macintosh classic? whatever it was, that computer spoke to me and smiled. no press f1, press f2, and blinking green cursor.

mr jobs was not even at apple at the time. forced out and in exile practically. but his thoughts, how do you banish those? once they're out, they're out, and influencing someone, somewhere... certainly the mac design engineers.

later he'd return to apple, play his own games, and save the company, take it to unbelievable financial heights... trillion would enter the corporate jargon and ambition. but by then i'd read insanely great, a gift from my husband, because ever since that hi from a computer i'd been muttering about this man called steve jobs.

and i don't really care about corporate men. the only other one i'd found interesting was akio morita, because sony was the first tv i'd seen, and my father had bought a sony record player back in 1974 with much joy, also given my brothers and me a sony cassette player each for he was convinced if we taped our lessons and heard them as we read, we'd absorb information better, it would make for more thorough studying. then there was the walkman. so when mr morita's made in japan came out during those initial days of books by not authors but company executives, i did read it, and enjoyed it a lot. but i didn't go on about him. about steve jobs i did. so jacob got me that book.

i don't remember exact words or moments, but while reading insanely great i felt a thrill that stayed on. someone who thinks of what's to come. and doesn't let anything get in the way of it. certainly not the usual tings that businesses apply to gauge a situation, read a market, plan the next.

a man with an instinct and a cocky crazy faith in himself. hard to restrain, hard to perhaps even like.

in later browsings, i read somewhere, he dated two women at once and would ask his friends whom should he go with, the looker or the other one. think he went with the latter and was happy too. there was of course lisa, the computer named after the daughter with whom he hardly had a relationship till much later. there was the experimenting with drugs, even the not at all enamoured of india side, and i am touchy about that. yes, a flawed man... as perhaps we all are.

but that other side of him. those thoughts of his. that looked straight at what is to come. not burdened by memory or tradition, almost crystal gazing. i can't stop my heartbeats from picking up pace when i think of this.

and where he took it. and how.

we moved to singapore in november 1997, and i started working with an ad agency soon after that. in 1999, i left my job and went to jordan for a six month assignment. on my return, i joined the singapore agency again. when i walked into my office, there was this computer sitting on my desk, which looked nothing like a computer. it was a cross between a lozenge and a spaceship. colourful, translucent, snazzy, futuristic, asking me to bite into it and zoom off into outer space with spock and scotty. it was the first imac, mine was in teal green, a hand me down from my boss. this was steve jobs's first computer after his return to apple.

2001 onwards came one after another things that would change our lives, literally forever. not just computers, every time a new idea. itunes, ipod, iphone... he was reshaping apple for the next century, he seemed to know where he would take it – not just the company, the future.

no one might have gone there before. first officer spock may not be at hand, but a man who was difficult to work with, who wasn't even an engineer, who didn't create technology, who was accused of stealing (how many times i've heard the gui or icon was not his idea, he saw it at xerox, he filched it... ok, but who, who, who saw its use, its possibilities, its place in our lives, i feel like screaming), who was accused of making too expensive everything, who made things look unnecessarily good, who had dropped out of college, who was gimmicky, whose desk was really messy (perhaps his thoughts even?)... and who was no one's ideal candidate for messiah or changer of our world, he went ahead and did it anyway.

i think of his last invention, the iphone. look what it's made possible.

from looking up recipes, to playing games, to keeping an eye on the child at home, to searching up information, to paying bills, banking, chatting, showing off, dating, doodling, brooding, calling cabs, checking time, reading the market, farmers get links to markets on their phones, politicians persuade voters through social media, migrant labourers speak to their family as and when they please, children away from home – in the same city or on another continent – keep in touch all the time (when my father went to toronto to study back in 1952, think he made two or three phone calls home in those three years; when i came to singapore in 1997, i paid hundreds of dollars on phone calls every month, now my daughter is in london, and we chat when we like for free, just the time difference in the way of things), tv correspondents cover news on specially engineered phone, photographs fly across cyber space on instagram... isn't the phone in every interface, in every act of ours?

the smartphone crosses barriers we've never dreamed of crossing before.

without that iphone, would there be this now so familiar word, app? and all that apps do and we do with them? akio morita made music mobile. steve jobs perhaps knew the power of that mobility. he took a phone and made it something scotty would be in charge of in spaceship enterprise. oh, you can also make phone calls with it.

things he conceived of were not just for the "higher" or niche needs, nor just for the rich and the famous. they were for everyone, each one of us. many may not be able to afford an iphone, but once the idea was realised, manufacturers with cheaper options were bound to come along. and of course they did.

he made this esoteric and dare i say unpretty looking realm of information and its technology into an easy cool thing, meant for everyone, within reach, refreshing, like coca-cola. actually , much more... part of us.

one man's way of thinking, and an entire species's today and tomorrow are different. changed the course of things i keep thinking. in ways not yet fully known or understood.

just five years older than me. died at 55, having done what he did. i miss him. sometimes with a great long sigh.

wonder what he would have done next. i keep the iphone 5, the last phone he launched with that black turtleneck and blue jeans look, because it was his last. three years after i bought it, the battery started giving trouble, i took it to the shop. sorry, they said, this model had a problem, so we are replacing the batteries for free. yesterday, i noticed again the battery was working just fine.

my thoughts are all over the place, reflected in the writing.

think of it as notes.

sometimes there's more honesty at this level of writing.

but why a saree for mr jobs? maybe because i missed him just now and since i am wearing a saree this evening, my friday saree, why not for him? also, the other day i read, the jacqard loom invented in 1801 by joseph jacqard, is the first machine to use punch cards to instruct a machine to do certain tasks. this knowhow would later be used in the development of computers. i love handloom and resist overuse of jacquard looms, but they have brought a lot of ease and economy to fabric, even saree, weaving.

so, which saree? i am reminded of his think different campaign. the commercial with black and white pictures of remarkable men and women who changed our world. he insisted on the black and white, think he had many of their shots in his room.

i have this patola in b/w. it must be the one.

here's to you, mr jobs...

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. sarees tell stories | black and white classic ikat saree from bandhej, bangalore, bought around 2008.

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

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.

source: imgur.com

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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Friday, February 18, 2022

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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Thursday, February 17, 2022

the other blue banarasi

in the middle of may or was it june last year, when a good friend and his wife invited us to their daughter’s wedding in kerala in december, and i said, yes, would love to come, i was fully prepared for an enchanting time in the deep green southern state which has an even deeper affair with red. today, the only state in the country with a communist government.

i would be passing through bengaluru. when i lived there, it was bangalore, and i have no idea why we keep changing names, but well, bengaluru it is. everyone grumbles that the city, where i spent some of my happiest times, is gone: traffic, population, heat, dust, doom and politicians.

i disagree, and as some of my closest friends live there, i planned a stopover on the way to as well as on the way back from kumarakom, where the wedding was to be held in a resort by the backwaters. i do not wish to digress, but watching the colours of an indian wedding unfold against the blues and endless of the backwaters, framed by the aforementioned green, is a religious experience. especially if elevated by genuine welcome and the easy banter of friends who went to school together; the father of the bride was a class mate of mine.

the bride was radiant, she is malayalee and of syrian christian heritage, the groom had a gentle smile, he’s maharashtrian, hindu. the wedding was joyful and fun, parents and families on both sides enthusiastically taking part in customs and traditions, even those that were new to them. i was not embarrassed at all that i’d packed four dressy sarees and a new mekhela sador for the five occasions across two days.

as i mentioned, i was quite sure the trip would be happy and memorable, but i was not prepared for the sarees. i don’t mean the ones i’d taken along.

you never really know what the future holds in store for you, do you. i’m not trying to be randomly and mundanely philosophical here, just going over the circumstances that led to those sarees.

of course, on a visit to bengaluru, i’d rush over to ambara – a nice boutique – right next door to my friend’s place; and there’s always chickpet a short drive away, we spent an illuminating and expensive evening there on my last visit… if you love or even like sarees, don’t give rukmini hall a miss. we casually considered going to kancheepuram this time to gaze at the silks on the loom, but desisted.

i kept thinking: maybe i’ll get one kanjeevaram, or an ilkal… but nothing else. the best laid plans of mice and weak women…

the friend i stayed with on the way to kerala, said she had to take me to taneira, the new saree place opened by titan. the famous tata group, known for steel, cars, technology, finance, hotels, watches… is into sarees now. the mighty shall capitulate before these six yards, it is written.

my friend had some taneira discount coupons… lovely shop, i thought, as i walked in. there were sarees on shelves, on hangers, spread out on tables, sarees everywhere in a series of rooms connected by meandering corridors and staircases. they floated, they sat, they beckoned, they wrapped you in a world of their own… you got lost, there was no need to be found.

i tried to resist. i was valiant. then i spotted a light blue banarasi. i almost stopped breathing when the folds were opened and it was laid out on the table.

i said, no. i was not going to spend madly on the very first day. i could do it. my friend reminded me of the discount. i walked away and fell upon a cotton kota with its eight trademark squares to assuage the pain. it had pretty sanganeri block prints, a saree from rajasthan that was a repository of memories… my aunts, mother, great aunt, they’d wear these airy, light kotas, especially during summer.

my friend watched me as i hurried over to see what lay in the next room. each alcove, space, corner had a different kind of saree on display, from different parts of the country.

the dark pink and purple maheshwari from madhya pradesh caught me unawares.

maharani ahaliyabai holkar… rehwa… gossamer silk… revival by sally holkar… the thoughts wafted and swirled, gold tinted and free.

i have never bought a maheshwari for myself i thought…

my friend giggled and thrust a pale mehendi green chanderi into my hands. i must buy this for you, she said. why, i muttered flummoxed, staring at the see through fine fabric.

she laughed and replied, i’ve never seen anyone so happy in a saree store, it’s like watching a kid in a toy shop… besides, i have the discount.

i went off to kerala with three new sarees in the suitcase.

on the way back, we stopped by at kasavu kada in cochin, well known for their kerala cotton sarees. i bought a white cotton, not the real zari kasavu, just a simple inexpensive one with a thin border in gold and a snazzy purple. it cost around rs 450. why so cheap, i asked. the cotton count is only 80, said the man. it was handloom, it was 100% cotton, people were willing to talk about the count of warp and weft, not give vague answers, felt good.

back in bengaluru, at my second host’s home, a kesa paat from assam awaited. i’d bought it from kohua d’handloom café, a new shop in guwahati; they’d sent it over. the owner is a friend’s cousin, he and i have fascinating chats on whatsapp often about the weavers and textiles of assam. kesa paat or raw silk is diaphanous and a bit stiff, the drape gets better after you wear it a few times, he had said. i’d fallen for the motifs, assamese bootis are unique, mine had tiny goss phool or the tree motif – phool is literally flower, means motif or booti – and large bold triangular patterns on the pallu, in a no nonsense brown and gold. it was even prettier than i’d thought.

i would have left india with these five new sarees, but then the banarasi started spooking me. i had to return to taneira with the second friend. what would i do without my ever patient and indulgent friends. she and i pondered the light blue banarasi. something wasn’t right. the shot effect… the density of bootis… or was it their size? as i wandered, if not lonely as a cloud, quite sad at the thought of letting go, i saw the other blue banarasi.

the folds opened, the classic zari work shone, the stately border, the zari encrusted pallu, the lavish kolkas sitting nawabishly at either end of it, the crafting was sure, you could sense this craft wasn’t perfected in a day, the blue reminded me of aunties at north indian weddings. i, like shetty of good old hindi films, was sold.

i came back from south india with six sarees. a saree from the south, a kerala cotton, not kanjeevaram this time. a saree from the east, the kesa paat from assam. a saree from the west, the kota from rajashthan. a saree from the north, the blue banarasi. and two sarees from the centre of the country, madhya pradesh: the maheshwari and the chanderi.

when i realised this, i knew i had to write. this was not planned. the best moments in life i guess rarely are.

errant thought: perhaps there’ll be an invite soon, and that over dressed aunty at an indian wedding.

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sarees tell stories | mehendi green chanderi, deep pink maheshwari, sanganeri print kota, blue banarasi from taneira, bengaluru; kerala cotton with purple border from kasavu kada, cochin; off white kesa paat from kohua d’handloom cafe, guwahati; all sarees bought in december 2018.

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