sarees, the word conjures an image of colours, bold and bright, swathes of rich fabric, motifs and intricate weave... but not all sarees are like that.…
All Posts By
indrani robbins
“you can’t go back…” whispered the summer wind brushing against my temple. “what? what did you say?” it was nine in the morning, my mind wasn’t fully alert yet. “you can’t go back home,” a ring of quiet assertion in the palmate leaf of the plant on my desk. “it didn’t matter then… it matters now,” the white tea cup said. the cup was almost empty. i longed for a sip of tea. how many years was it now that…
more than 3,300 years ago it is believed, god gave the torah to the jewish people on mount sinai. shavuot celebrates this deeply spiritual moment, with prayer, joy, gratitude, the reading of the commandments, and of course, food. in this case, food with dairy is customary. every year, just before shavuot, which is celebrated in may/june, my husband reminds me we must have lots of nice dairy dishes and desserts at home. clearly thoughts of buckets of ice cream, cheese,…
my world collapses every now and then in the middle of an afternoon under an indolent sun when the air doesn’t move and the fan’s whir is a reminder of a thousand other worlds in a million different snapshots of time that linger as languid as the mid year sun minstrels of all my worlds that did sooner or later coalesce and cease the earth turns inexorable, programmed i am time’s magnet, how can it escape now it races, now…
she’d not seen yellow butterflies take over the strawberry patch or the beds of nasturtiums, dog flowers, and phlox in the garden. she hadn’t run through yellow mustard fields under wide open skies, and felt the drag of wind in her hair, the rub and scratch of mustard greens on her arms and legs. she had never seen buttercups growing wild on a hillside. no, she’d never seen or felt any of that. she had lived all her life in…
sarees tell stories
maharanis, construction workers, ics officers – a saree wearer’s longish ramble
Posted on April 29, 2019
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…
sometimes, i think, just let it go even if most certainly absolutely positively you know something someone’s saying is not quite so just let it go strange how those lines came out rhyming was it my thought or was it the timing you know, astrology and stuff that keep stymieing nuptials and negotiations, the stars and their diming? but really, just let it go even though reality may be different yet who’s to tell it is just so isn’t yours…
we think we can replace everything. friends, pets, kidneys, countries, even computers. no, seriously. lost someone? broken something? house taken by a typhoon? mysterious ailment got your nine (or is it ten) year old imac? never mind. you can replace it. we even have a replacements.com. yeah, we’re not hanging around aching for things gone, shattered, destroyed by time… we’re going to replace it. like that. but what if you feel a sense of emptiness that refuses to budge even…
