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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banarasis are good for you : the friday saree

 

years ago, i fell for the guinness tagline that went, guinness is good for you. i suspect i drink guinness more on account of that line than the taste of the heavy dark stout itself.

guinness is good for you was written in the 1920s when Guinness started advertising for the first time. i'd heard once, in the '70s or '80s an enormous amount of money, effort, and time were spent to change that line, come up with something new. . creatives thought and thought, then went away to far off isles to think some more, free float, brainstorm, crack the big idea. and after all that, they came back with... well, guinness is good for you. and so, the line remained.

i can't substantiate that story, but i just found out that james joyce had suggested changing the line with a slogan of his own, "guinness – the free, the flow, the frothy freshener." but thankfully, that was not accepted. it remained, guinness is good for you.

the best ideas are like that. simple, almost minus any adornment,  undeniable.

which reminds me of a conversation i had the other day about these beautiul sarees called banarasis; benaroshi, if you're bengali.

banarasis are handloom sarees from the ancient city of varanasi or benares, with their trademark and fabulous zaree work. they are usually in silk, but you do have fine cotton banarasis too.

beautiful as they are, they have posed a persisting problem for their owners and wearers.

which is, where do you wear a banarasi?

the sarees are inextricably linked to weddings and celebrations. the ;et's overdress moments in our world. the endless occasions that weddings present, special anniversaries, ceremonies for mothers to be, your offspring's rice ceremony or whatever is the special ritual for children in a community. banarasis also find a place in religious festivals like diwali, durga pujo, eid. but mainly, it's weddings.

if you want to wear a banarasi, there has to be an occasion. you just can't wear a banarasi otherwise, seems to be the inherited wisdom of saree wearers everywhere.

you dress up in your lovely blue banarasi with big angoor or grape motifs to a cousin's mehendi. your own wedding banarasi you have worn only once after your marriage, to your brother's wedding. at your friend's sangeet, your sweet but careless aunty dropped food on your pale pink banarasi with silver zaree that your mother had worn for her gode bharai ceremony before you were born.

"i have so many beautiful banarasis, but no occasion to wear them," how many times have i heard that? or, "i know the mauve tissue banarasi is gorgeous, but no, i'll buy this kanjeevaram without zaree, more wearable." or even, "oh, banarasis are too much, too jhatak matak, who wears zaree these days," i feel a bit shaken by that.

when i started buying sarees again, banarasis began to demand and get my attention pretty quickly. my mother was born in benaras or kashi, was that some sort of subliminal tug? i've actually always been dazzled by banarasis. my mother had many of them, from her wedding brocade to these really cool ones in solid glimmering shades – emerald, crimson, ivory – with narrow finely worked borders in contrasting shades. i've worn most of them, always for an occasion of course.

but how do you get the banarasi out of the occasion into the everyday world?

 

that was the question a girl who loved sarees, – whom i'd just met – and i were pondering a couple of sundays ago. she said, she felt one should simply stop needing a big occasion to wear them.

instead, just wear them whenever one felt like it. as you would wear all other nice sarees.

to visit people, for small dinners, when you had people over. treat the banarasi like any other beautiful saree. and wear it. not keep your banarasis in muslin and mothballs forever, waiting longingly for that one mega wedding or whatever, when you can at last let them come out and breathe.

i laughed.

and i heard something in me say, why not?

we'd invited them for shabbat dinner next week. she said, she'd wear one of her banarasis. and she instructed me, practically, to wear the red brocade banarasi i'd mentioned, a replica of my mother's wedding saree.

it felt like a pact. a solemn giving of word to each other which would lead to greater things some day. it definitely felt heady, like a large swig of dark smooth guinness.

after much thought, i chose a blue green shot jongla or jangla (from jungle) banarasi.

when she walked in, we both stopped in our tracks and started smiling, quite incredulous. her husband exclaimed, "you're wearing identical sarees!"

wasn't exactly the same, but hers had an all over jaal or pattern too, with similar motifs, and the colours were close. it was a classic banarasi from her wedding trousseau. mine had been acquired more recently, for our anniversary a couple of years ago.

she had also worn her saree differently, twisting and pleating the yards of silk deftly, as as she pleased. the sheen of a tightly drawn black belt over the pallu and around the waist firmly brought the traditional jangla to the here and this moment.

 

we spent a happy friday evening together, not being self conscious at all about all the gold and silk. it felt just right. even the men, dressed casually, seemed to like that little high in the air. a refreshing note to a quiet dinner.

i wished i were tall and slender so i could throw my saree about in that carefree swirl. we posed and took shots. banarasis stepped out of weddings and breathed more freely.

a big idea i felt, had been cracked. just wear your banarasi.

i've never read joyce, but a moment ago considered swiping his "the free, the flow, the frothy freshener" tagline.

but no.

i'll go with...

banarasis are good for you.

bought the jangla from tilfi in december, 2020. it was an anniversary gift from my husband. this picture was taken on our anniversary, the first time i wore the saree. thoroughly enjoyed donning a jangla, lifted the covid gloom. we went to a bar afterwards. no big celebration naturally, this is the wild spread of coronavirus time. the photograph is taken by ferolyn, she's our cook and my main consultant on sarees. she's caught the blue green colour play in this one, so am posting here.

 

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photos credit ferolyn fernandez

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

maharanis, construction workers, ics officers – a saree wearer's longish ramble

 

six yards, five and a half metres, sometimes nine yards, of material. you have to wrap it around yourself. tuck here, tuck there, make the pleats, hold the pallu in place. it must be so difficult. one must sit still or move around in luxury cars or palanquins if one is in a saree.

yet a saree has never demanded that. not really, not ever. in fact, if your palanquin is late, you can simply hitch up your saree a little and jump onto a bus.

if the day is windy and the pallu flies, refusing to stay in place, you could hum a romantic song to yourself, or if not in a frothy mood, grab it none too gently and tuck it into the waist band of the petticoat, and carry on with your life. it won’t mind.

or if you’re at a wedding, your saree stylishly sweeping the floor, your pallu long and glittering with zaree and sequins, and someone drops food on it, after the initial shock and the desire to throttle that someone, you can grab a jug of water from the waiter passing by and clean up, then deftly adjust your saree, so the stain is hidden by a pristine swathe of glimmer.

an image stays in the mind. a row of women in brightly coloured, well-worn sarees balancing muddy platters on their heads piled with cement, sand, and other building materials, walking confidently around a construction site.

across india, women working in construction sites, going about their arduous day in mill printed cotton sarees and other hardy weaves. sometimes with their heads covered, because tradition demands it or perhaps because it guards them against the glare of the sun. really, how do these women manage? i can’t stop marvelling.

the vegetable vendor hawking her fresh greens wears it, the cook grumbling about her low wage wears it, the cleaner, the part time bai, the goddess; city women wear it as do women in villages; movie stars drape it, farm workers wrap it, even school girls tuck it in every morning (had i stayed on in gokhale memorial girls’ school, it would have been uniform class nine onward). the saree is everywhere, and perhaps that’s precisely why one doesn’t take note of it, barely notice it. a bit like oxygen.

my mother graduated from frock to saree when she was thirteen. if you think that means she belonged to a conservative family, not really. saree was a sign of growing up maybe but not always an indication that you’d be house bound and restricted now on. all of her and my aunt’s class cutting from college to watch hindi movies was done in sarees. they took a bus from delhi university to connaught place i am sure… most movie theatres were in that posh part of town, the commercial district of lutyens’ delhi, in the mid to late fifties. and my aunt was very fashionable, so it couldn’t have been sturdy cottons only riding those crowded buses.

a saree is ultimately a length of fabric, which you can twist, turn, tuck, pleat, wear as you’d like to, need to, want to. it’s interactive. it’s flexible. it lets you decide.

and women across different cultures and backgrounds, over time, have done precisely that. there are over a hundred ways of wearing a saree. this has been researched and documented. what’s perhaps not documented is that we, each one of us, have our own little take, our own touches and fixes to get the look we want. 
our own way of throwing on a saree.

my paternal grandmother in a white tangail with coloured border, ready to go out, her saree or “kapod,” cloth as they’d call it, well starched and worn in the “shadha sheedhe,” the plain and easy, style. this is called the “aatpoure” drape according to several articles on the net, i may have heard the word, but doesn’t register much. shadha sheedhe does.

my grandmothers and great-aunts wore their sarees in the traditional bengali manner, with broad pleats tucked at the waist, a swirl of cloth about the upper body, over this shoulder and that, leaving only the arms visible. one part of the cloth could be easily pulled up and drawn over the head to cover it, as and when needed. the more modern grandmother switched to the current popular style when she went out.

this style – which is perhaps the most familiar look of the saree nowadays, immediately springing to mind when we hear the word – came about gradually during the bengal renaissance period between the 1860s and the early 1900s. along with new thinking in art, education, politics, society, religion, a change in the way fifty percent of the population dressed. naturally, it didn’t happen in a day, but by and by, slowly yet surely, the new drape gained currency.

the british had a hand in this too. managing india, so they could maximise their gains, led to among other things, the creation of the indian civil service (initially known as the imperial civil service)… the highly prestigious ics. they deigned to allow a few indians into this elite cadre. many of the indian ics officers were bengalis, since the brits ruled for more than hundred and fifty years from calcutta. they belonged to eminent families, qualifying for the ics was considered quite an achievement, a reflection of your education, class, intellect. even netaji subhas chandra bose took the ics exams i just found out. he stood fourth, but didn’t join as he had no wish to serve the colonial government. but what’s all that got to do with the saree?

well, the wives of the ics officers were expected to attend social events and parties along with their husbands. this posed a problem. for before that, women of wealthy, upper class families stayed indoors, they didn’t go out and mingle freely with men. it was the custom in bengal, for women, aristocratic or otherwise, to don their saree in that matter-of-fact way i mentioned earlier, without a blouse. no blouse? the dear queen, had she heard of it, must have been most unamused. thoughts of smelling salt from my georgette heyer reading days swirl in the mind. i am giggling as i imagine the imbroglio… on both sides of the story. our patriarchal men would have been most perturbed by the whole thing, deep discussions on shastra and what is the world coming to must have rumbled across the mansions and rajbaris of the great metropolis of the east. wonder what the women thought. anyway, bottom line, this would simply not do if one had to step out of the purdah, or palanquin, and meet members of the opposite sex. 
 


and so came along the need for a saree drape that addressed all modesty issues and looked pretty and compatible – perhaps even competed – with the gowns of the european women. the saree found a new look, while a shirt-like blouse, with frills and lace, and a petticoat or underskirt became part of the ensemble. 

the new drape was a culmination of ideas and accents from several women. first among them: jnanadanandi devi. rabindranath tagore’s brother satyendranath was the first indian ics officer. his wife, jnanadanandini, was a woman with a say in things if i am to believe film portrayals. when she went to live in bombay with her husband, she was impressed with the “bombay dastur,” or the style in which the chic parsi ladies wore their gorgeous china-made garas with jackets and petticoats. it was a take on the traditional gujarati style of wearing a saree with the pallu, the free end, in front.

eleven of the fifteen women who helped draft india’s constitution. all deeply involved with the indian independence movement, as were thousands of other women… hindu, muslim, sikh, christian, upper caste, lower caste, from across india. intersting to see tat be 1947-48, the new way of wearing the saree is adopted by all, whether you cover your head or not. photo courtesy feminismindia.com

jnanadanandini modified it and drew the saree across the bosom, letting it cover the upper body with pleats at the front, then dropped the pallu over the left shoulder to the back, only to bring it up again under the right shoulder. it left the right hand “free for courtesies” says wiki. this became popular and was known as, if i’m not wrong, the “brahmika saree.” the more progressive and educated brahmo women adopted it initially, wearing tailored blouses and petticoats with their sarees.

in the classic movie “sahib, bibi aur ghulam,” set in late nineteenth century bengal, the beautiful and tragic chhoti bahu (meena kumari) is unforgettable in her shadha sheedhe sarees and glittering jewellery, and the fiery jaba (waheeda rehman), a young brahmo woman who is almost an antithesis to chhoti bahu, wears her saree in the modern style, equally memorable. two completely different worlds and mindsets joined by a piece of cloth.

jnanadanandini devi did not, however, add the swishing array of narrow pleats that drop from the waist to the ground in front, allowing for longer strides and easy mobility. that came later with suniti devi, the maharani of cooch behar. it was this addition that set the saree seriously on the path to its modern silhouette.

that final touch by the daughter of philosopher, reformer, and brahmo leader keshub chandra sen, could it have come originally from an ancient unknown woman lost in history? the sculptures in centuries old temples show unstitched garments with those fishtail-like pleats on queens, apsaras, attendants, everyday women, and of course, goddesses.

the altered drape would not only let women go out and be part of the upper crust social set, but seen as a sign of modernity, it would be adopted by the growing middle class in cities. and some day not too far away, it would adorn many of the women who’d march against british rule in india’s fascinating independence movement.

there’s no tyranny of style here, however. even as the modern drape – often called the nivi style, which has its origin some say, in a style from andhra pradesh – got accepted, the older norms stayed alive. those many ways of wearing your saree. gujarati seedha pallu; bengali aatpoure or shadha sheedhe (plain and simple), as my grandmothers called it; the coorg style with pleats at the back; the looped-between-the-legs nauvari of maharashtra; interesting pleat and pallu arrangements of madurai; the kachhora drape of chhattisgarh tribals; the santhal style; andhra, tamil nadu, kerala, assam, punjab, odissa, rajasthan… there are saree drapes from everywhere, sometimes several of them. a blouse was added on at times, or a petticoat, but it really all depended on the saree wearer’s need, her comfort, her way of life.

the cook in kolkata and the part time maid, had a no-nonsense way of winding the yards tightly around themselves, no flyaway loose ends, no sweeping the floor length. it was the busy working woman’s drape.

a photograph i discovered stashed away with a bunch of pictures at the back of a cupboard in my father’s family home. this is most probably a dear great-aunt of mine. i just remember her in her white widow’s saree, the “thaan.” maybe it’s her, maybe it isn’t… that brooch looks stylish and this drape possibly reflects the tweaks introduced by jnanadanandini devi.

  

for some reason, mrinmoyee in “samapti” and durga in “pather panchali” come to mind, how everyday sarees were in a girl’s life. not getting in the way of scampering about woods, or running through open meadows covered in kash.

i am no newcomer to the saree, it’s always been there; yet, it was only the other day that it struck me the design of a saree is pretty neat. while it looks elaborate and perhaps even fussy in a world of stitched garments that can be slipped on easily, and have a cut and look that’s static, the saree in fact is fluid and amenable in ways most clothes aren’t.

from the plainest to the most ornate and delicate, there’s a hearty can do spirit in it. it can handle situations, it’s happy to deal with life. floating through the saree’s skein of pliable yarn is an undertow of grit, of determination to tackle the day. and of freedom.

which is why, you’ll notice, every now and then, there’s change. a new twist, a new turn. a new generation finds its own relationship with the saree. my daughter isn’t rolling her eyes because i’ve suggested a saree for her graduation ceremony. she’s chosen a plain yellow one, from assam, handspun eri yarn, handloom. she wants to pair it with a blue blouse. the blouse will definitely not look like one of mine. she’s going to wear the saree most likely tied a little higher, coming down only till the ankles, her pallu not as snugly pulled over the upper body as i wear it, and with her favourite black high heel boots.

we are many moons past jnanadanandini and suniti devi’s sensibilities. the sculptures on our temple walls are perhaps wishing they had today’s beautiful blouses to cover their bare torsos. someone’s adjusting and tucking the pleats of her saree somewhere. a pallu is dropping over the shoulder… mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, great-great-great-. how does a piece of fabric shimmy so blithely through so much time?

i feel a tug. must wear sarees more often, i think. but i am in one, i realise the next instant. it’s friday, and these days, i wear a saree for shabbat, the weekly jewish observance at our home. today, it’s a dressy kanjeevaram silk with zaree.

there’s a yell from the kitchen. i lift the saree up a bit and rush across. blood all over the floor, worried faces, the cook has cut her hand. i pull the pleats up and tuck a bit into the petticoat, the pallu of my expensive but not snooty saree is twisted and goes around my waist. time to get to work.

 

 

wrote this on april 29, 2019

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sarees tell stories | brushed orange and maroon kanjeevaram from delhi's nalli, circa 2005; yellow eri from kohua d'handloom cafe, guwahati, 2019.

 

referred to material from this economic times article, the wiki page on jnanadanadini devi and an article in the statesman on the ics.
 

waiting for my daughter’s first saree to arrive. this photo and the title shot courtesy anjan barua of kohua d’handloom café.

the saree did arrive and my daughter wore it to her graduation, with a blue blouse, silver jewellery, boots on her feet.

 

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the state of assam, where the eri yarn was handspun, dyed with natural colours, and woven on the loom.

kanchipuram in tamil nadu where kanjeevaram sarees are woven.

(maps courtesy uploaders.)

 

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the friday saree index

how many pleats? index

 

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. 

..........................................

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

 

sarees tell stories index

the friday saree index

how many pleats? index

 

 

my photo credit ferolyn fernandez