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…
Our family is vegetarian, which lifestyle later led to one member in the family taking this non-violent way a little further by adopting a vegan way of life. LALITA ARYA, our first guest writer on Sarees Tell Stories, brings us the tale of a delightful fabric and more. Many thanks to Lalita for enjoying Writersbrew and deciding to write about a saree that touched her. Being vegan has become quite popular in the west, although this has been one of…
the simple run stitch. needle moving up, needle moving down, a stitch you see, a stitch you don’t, anyone can do this, of course, it’s not an art. it’s the everyday, good old run. women untrained, housewives, aunties and grandmothers chatting together after lunch on a winter afternoon chewing their paan, they use it to make soft quilts with old sarees and dhotis. quilts called kantha. the “n” is a soft nasal one and the “a”s stretch long, and it’s…
will you both wear sarees one day and let me take some pictures, i asked. one of them grinned, the other did not. my sixteen year old niece loves to wear sarees, my almost fifteen year old daughter doesn’t. my niece held up the white tangail with gold border and black and gold motifs. it’s a beautiful saree, fine cotton, classy and cool. i think my mother picked it up from a shop in lake market in calcutta, almost twenty…
i took this picture to send it to the landlord’s agent, so she’d understand why i was asking for a couple of shelves in my cupboard. i am worried that my sarees stacked, as you can see almost forty sarees high, will get ruined if i leave them like that. it’s already been two years. i hadn’t meant to write anything when i took the shot. though i have to say, i found it interesting. amitabh bachchan sang the national…
my aunt said, “shall i get a madhubani saree made for you?” i was intrigued, madhubanis were paintings, weren’t they? with endless little lines, geometric figures, krishna, radha, peacocks, flowers, faces with elongated eyes, deer, forest… fine lines and bright colours. how do you make a saree of that? madhubani pieces are fairly commonplace or at least they used to be. i am not talking of extremely intricate pieces, it’s the more basic ones, often in black/green/red and maybe blue…
then he said “hey ram!” and he died. every time i heard that as a child i was captivated. a funny kind of beauty in that image. a pristine clean thing, nothing could taint it. complications are for adults perhaps. the back gate of my grandparents’ home in delhi would take us down a narrow lane to the back gate of birla house. this is where gandhi ji used to live, and where he died on a winter evening twelve…
golden arrows rained down, a charioteer looked back at the archer standing behind him. who was he shooting at? i looked to the left. a man stood on another chariot holding the reins as a pair of horses reared, one of the chariot’s wheels seemed to be stuck in the mud and a warrior in reddish orange and gold was beside it, perhaps trying to get it out. who were they? even though my mind wasn’t articulating clearly, i knew…
fine fine off white cotton with a layer of shimmery soft gold on edges, on ends, six whole yards of it. i absolutely love the kerala kasavu. i never knew what it was called, asking in my inelegant way for “you know one of those white and gold kerala sarees,” when my friend said her mother was going to her home town in the southern state. aunty bought me my very first kasavu, and as i stared feeling pretty tongue…
a saree has never heard of size zero. actually a saree doesn’t care too much about size at all. short, tall, thin, small, fat, squat, what, not… a saree is happy to drape you; no discrimination, no snigger at the inches, no unseemly joy at chancing upon a slim waist. before the saree, all are equal. my boss once told me, he is singaporean chinese, that he thought the saree was the most creative “dress” ever. just a length of…