Browsing Category

sarees tell stories

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…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

checks and no balance from chettinad

Posted on November 5, 2018

it was a couple of years ago i think, that a good friend of mine said, since i loved sarees so much we should go to chettinad together. chettinad? i was surprised. what did chettinad have to do with sarees? chettinad was about chicken with a distinct peppery taste, which no matter how many recipes i looked up on the net, i never seemed to get right. it was about food: spicy, aromatic, delicious. it was about the famous chettiars…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

a lament for a saree

Posted on April 7, 2018

it’s a favourite saree of mine, and now it’s fraying. a strange kind of pain at this weakening of closely entwined threads, at this clear signal of mortality, at passing. it’s a saree from orissa, now the spelling has been changed to odisha; we spend a lot of time changing spellings for some reason. my mother and i bought it, around thirty five years ago, from one of the saree shops along triangular park in kolkata (we changed that spelling…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

iron nails and camel dung

Posted on November 28, 2017

the more i look at the saree, the more it wraps me in thoughts. random ones that i can’t arrange beautifully like the profusion of hand printed patterns on it. i want to write a simple piece, i mutter to myself… about those nails and camel dung, but i can’t stop the steady stream of images and words: shadowy memories of things heard far away in the past, and some just the other day. cotton trade, american civil war, indigo…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

muga and memories

Posted on September 14, 2017

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…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

how do you wear your saree

Posted on July 10, 2017

she wasn’t very tall, had a slight figure, hair in a bun, a pleasant expression, nothing remarkable really, yet the two of us were staring at her riveted. next thing i remember, we’d waylaid her and started an animated conversation. i looked at the photograph recalling things. it was the winter of 1980, i think. no internet, no google, no photoshop; i have to rely on good old memory. nice feeling. in fact, when i found the photograph, and grinned…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

in a pink nylon saree

Posted on March 27, 2017

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…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

patola dreams

Posted on February 13, 2017

the edges of the patterns are slightly blurred, the colours are shimmering, the silk flows. i am holding this darkly lovely saree at a boutique in bombay and quietly falling in love. the fabric is soft as it falls languidly to the floor, the base is black with a mesh of yellow and magenta and purple and red and on it, the borders are ganga jamna… one red, the other magenta, not too wide, not too narrow. everything about the…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

the last saree i flicked from my mother

Posted on October 8, 2016

“where did you get this saree from?” i asked, when she came out of the room in this lovely light tangail. my mother was visiting me in singapore. she looked sort of pleased for i am sure she’d noticed the pique of interest in my voice. she said, she didn’t remember the name of the shop but she had decided to get herself some comfortable cotton sarees before coming here. so she had gone with one of her favourite cousins…

Continue Reading

sarees tell stories

of real and fake and chanderi sarees

Posted on August 5, 2016

he loved vintage cars. every morning, practically, he’d come to look at his collection, which used to be kept in a garage built on land rented from my family. he always wore pristine, brilliant white pajamas and a flowing crisp kurta, his hair would be neatly brushed and the most pleasant smile would appear on his face if he happened to spot you or any of your elders. “namashkar!” he’d greet in a low amicable tone, as he raised his…

Continue Reading