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.”
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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.
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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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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.
![](https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/uojemcP.jpg?resize=417%2C556&ssl=1)