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.
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.
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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.
