First a sheepish confession: I am an inveterate sareeholic. It’s like a junoon. When I see a sari I like, I want it. And all my economics lessons to distinguish between need and want are promptly consigned to my mental dustbin. It consumes me and there is no resting till I have purchased it. I have thought of therapy and even consulted one, but to no avail. It’s been 18 years now and I have given up. I seriously wish the saree sisterhood would establish a ‘sareeholic anonymous’ for women like me. 

My obsession, which I euphemistically call passion, qualifies me eminently to hand out my two bits to fellow ‘sareetarians’ here. So here I am peddling some wisdom learnt the hard way.

A second confession: I am what some people have rightly pointed out a “handloom snob” as regards my saris.  

It’s an inherited genetic fault. I blame it on my parents. My mother wore her tangails that she bought from the “kaapoorwalla dadas’ who travelled to Patna every few months with their pristine white ‘gatharis’ wearing even whiter dhotis and kurtas. They would come on working days, as they knew on Sundays, the man of the house would be home, and the lady of the house would be tarry to take out her savings from the cheeni ka dabba and the mandir drawer, secret nooks and crannies where she hid a few rupees out of sight, scrimping and saving for the time dada would come with his colorful pitara. 

But this is not a story unique to my mother. All her lady friends, the neighborhood mausis, chachis, and a few of the anglicised ones we called aunty in awe, had a similar modus operandi. The drawing room (yes middle classes had these with prized sofa sets) would turn into a picnic. Dada would always come post lunch around 2 pm, well aware that the ladies would not grudge spending their siesta amid his saris; and would stay till evening, wrapping up only when it was time for the menfolk to return home.

For the middle class housewives then, their daily wear cottons, mostly Bengal ones, as West Bengal being next door were easily accessible and affordable, a couple of Banarsis for those annual weddings and printed silks from Khadi or Co-Optex for winter outings, were their dharohar (prized possessions).

My dad, by the time I was old enough to form my memories, had graduated from wearing Khadhi dhoti-kurta (white cotton in summer and Tussar in winter) to Khadi Tussar trousers and shirts. His choice of handloom attire was not inspired by Gandhian values (he was somewhat contemptuous of Gandhi, but more about this in another post), but rather because that was how Indian middle class men dressed at the time). He was also an auditor of Khadi Gramodyog, traveling all over the country to weaving centres and regional offices, and I guess that could have influenced his choices. But later, when Khadi became unaffordable for the middle class corporate officer with no ‘ghoos ki kamai’, to maintain and also to buy, he switched to Raymond’s trousers in summers and woolens ones from khadi or Raymond’s all tailored by his favorite tailor masters, in winter. The shirt remained Khadi Tussar throughout the year. 

My mom though clung to her handloom cottons and silks…

Next post: Anatomy of the handloom snob. When did handloom get snob value? Was handloom always the preserve of the elite? Did it symbolize inverted snobbery of the middle classes? Why and when did synthetics became infra dig? 

What do you think?

Do you have similar memories to share? 

                 

Blue Bull in China Shop

One man’s prized bull can be another man’s pet peeve. Why else would have some genius come up with the expression “bull in a china shop”?  Now there is this prized bull, the perfect Murrah specimen Yuvraj, whose semen costing $3000 is perhaps the most expensive in India. Then there are those bulls who are sold off cheaply over gau matas for their lack of udders and end up becoming raw hide, protestations notwithstanding.  And now we have the blue bulls or blue cows, whichever way you like them, raising their holy heads and a ruckus.

Seriously speaking, I am all for the rights of the underprivileged, the voiceless, the weak and the downtrodden and this includes both the human and the animal species. I believe I am humanitarian at heart and would not willingly hurt someone defenseless.  Perhaps herein lies the crux. In this debate over man versus animal, predator versus prey, human rights versus animal rights, there is a huge moral dilemma. It is not so easy as taking the decision to give up eating chicken, fish, rabbit or egg and turning into a 100 per cent vegetarian, moved by the plight or sight of the PETA ads – Imagine if this were your leg piece, anyone? These are voluntary decisions, within individual control. Here, undoubtedly, it is man, the primate, who as king of the jungle is inflicting harm on lesser and weaker members of the larger family. In the evolved animal kingdom, where the concrete jungle has made rapid inroads into the green world, this analogy extends to the even more ferocious species, being poached and slowly turned extinct by rapacious and heartless human hunters.

However, the human world is a bit complicated. While the hunters and poachers are generally the poor tribes and people who live close to the land, the actual responsibility lies with the rich and the powerful for whom the forests are being stripped bare methodically. Highways, dams, roads, power projects, skins, metals, charms, weeds, medicines, wood…the world encroaches into the deep recesses daily with a looming question – are we balancing the benefits?

Apparently not! Apart from the human protests emanating from various quarters, time and again, there have been reports of ‘adventurous’ excursions of inhabitants of the forests into our world. In search of food and water, they are as scared as the humans they visit. From being rare sightings, these visits have now become quite frequent and in addition, ruthless and damaging. If there are man-eating leopards, boas and cobras being sighted in and around Delhi, monkey menace is ubiquitous across most of north India, and Vaishali district in Bihar has been in the news for the Neelgai menance. They come in hordes destroy crops, kill farmers and after unleashing mayhem vanish. There is no compensation, no ex gratia payment, nothing. Once affluent farmers, who had mortgaged their souls under recurrent bad monsoon, are now trying to get free ration under BPL card. The plight of those already under the BPL is best left unsaid.

Where human life is fragile, the raucous debates on the blue cow issue surely sound like a horde of bulls unleashed in a china shop, treading on many tender, bleeding and bruised souls.

Confessions of a Sareeholic

The Sari Revival Saga is making me suicidal. Nothing negative about the pacts and the pactors though. In fact, I have only words of praise and admiration for the gutsy ladies turning their clocks back on fashion and their backs on it too. Oh yes! From being the Bhartiya naari's demure dress code (and we are talking about the straight from the loom variety of Tangails and south cottons) to its vehement retrieval from the grandma and ma's sandooks, and its institution as the dress of choice for the formerly brand conscious fashionistas, the six yards has covered a wide length. Sure enough, it is not does just India's young women who are discovering the joys of the handloom textiles, it also the middle aged and the older women, the fashion designers, the revivalists and social worker, who seem to have come together in this movement. 

There was a time a few decades back when salwar suits, the attire of the north India women, mostly Punjab, all but swept away the sari. Women had discovered the comfort, adaptability and unrestricted freedom this garment offered in their fast changing modern life. Being a garment that covered women almost completely, it also found favour with most conservative communities who would earlier frown upon anything other than a sari for their women folk. 

Today, there are various sari groups on Facebook and hats off to Mark Zukerberg for creating a platform that binds unknown people with common love - in this instance love for easily the world's most elegant garment. Admittedly, Facebook is a great leveler and getting admission into closed sari groups is not as tough as getting membership of say the Gymkhana Club. All you need is a professed love for the six yards - your social status, professional qualifications or annual earnings are no bar. 

Facebook or rather social media is also strangely self procreating. In the sense that any cause, issue, non issue or topic tends to self multiply or mutate into various forms and platforms. Same with the sarilore. The sudden but determined rise of the sari lovers and saviours, has sprung up and equal or more numbers of platforms, all proclaiming an undying love for the six yards. 

All for a good cause. Your knowledge bank regarding Indian textiles, weaves and contemporizing experiments is increasing by the hour. Your vocabulary and your wardrobe now include not just the Jamawars and Jamdanis, Banarsis and Kanjivarams, but Phulias, Ilkaals, Nauwari, Sangneri, Dhaniakhali, Sugundi, Nupatana Khandua, Mekhla, Bawan Buti and are growing. In fact, you have become a brand ambassador of almost every region in India or are in the process of becoming one.

Amitabh Bachchan sir, Shah Rukh Khan bhai, Amir Khan sir, please take note. The saree narees are doing it gratis, I mean representing states they don't even belong to. They pose, they post, untiringly, almost daily - all for say a few hundred likes maybe from like-minded friends that they have bonded with on the platform. There is no age, religion, caste, culture bar here, In fact, each day begins with learning something new about another region, culture, cuisine, textile, weaving and the sari. Here bahu proudly drapes saasu's sari and in-laws sit on floor to help with the pleats. All for the love of the six yards!    

The nobility of resuscitating our ailing handloom and textile industry by the women pactors is truly appreciable. This is not crass commercialisation, they feel. It is commercialisation for a cause. They are digging into their own salaries or that of the spouse, (the willing or not so willing bakras) all to uphold a deeply entrenched, almost extinct tradition of India - buying sari. I call this a tradition for a reason. Some of us may recall the kapurwala dadas of West Bengal, who would come down periodically with their gathari of saris and all the neighbourhood women, who scrimped and saved for this day gleefully haggling over their purchases. It was a revered ritual that no man of the house could dare object to. 

The revival of the sari saga with all its noble mission is appreciable. There's just one catch though!

For shopaholics like yours truly, the deluge of sari posts by rang-birangi sakhi-sahelis is leading to mayhem with the bank balance. You flaunt what you have and shamelessly want what you don't. The ads that keep popping up at the right hand of the sari posts, all wrap you up in six yard wonderlands. You, poor Alice, are simply lost even before you can say s for sari.

The pactors display their exhaustive wardrobes and equally expansive knowledge and you start scooting around like the redoubtable Sherlock for the all but extinct weave, waft and weft. 

Four wardrobes full to overflowing, what you need now is a wardrobe mansion. Yet, you are insatiable, tickled by the thought of all those beautiful sarees and those poor weavers.

My bitter half suggests that I enrol at saree anonymous, just like those alcoholic anonymous rehabilitation places tucked away in some nondescript corners. Better still, he advises, when I doubt if some such rehabilitation institution exactly exists, "Start one, it is a good business idea and you may even get some VC funding, government grant or public recognition for discovering this psychological ailment."

I have mentally filed his advise as I edge from obsession to madness in my lust for sarees. For now, I just cannot give up the pleasure of being part of all these forums and platforms and preparing my priority list of weaves and varieties.

Collecting Mementos from Life

Death is the only certainty. And life is such a fickle mistress. Right? But what when you await death at the end of a life lived fully and for long? What about those who are around you knowing that your end is near yet not knowing when and how you will die? You are tired of living, waiting for eternal rest. Your loved ones know that and pray for a painless end for you. Know and are busy collecting mementos from your last lap of journey, to hoard and keep your memory alive--for when you are no more.

Dear Dad, this piece I write for you. For I can see you getting old and frail day by day, forgetful and lonely. You are old you say--94 years old--though we dispute your claim. Though your eyes are a faded blue-grey (they were always a little blue, a little grey) , there is still a twinkle in them when you smile. All your teeth are yours, and aren't you proud of them! You are independent, needing little help. Best of all you are still spirited and young at heart.

But you are tired, driven only by your will and perhaps your love so strong for us. You can't hear us speak and hate to use a hearing aid, you can't see much with cataract and age taking their toll, you barely eat, yet you are full of life.

Your memories are all a jumble of near and far, you make up stories of adventure like a five year old boy: of travelling by metro when you've never been near one; of walking from Faridabad to Delhi, when you can barely walk till the end of the road, of your days of struggle in Calcutta and your years as a humble, shy village kid in an all English school. Your tales are many and often repeated; yet you never tire of telling them.

You hum some long-forgotten tunes while sitting alone, lost somewhere in near and far and beat head as though it were the tabla that you had once learnt. You say time is of no importance to you now, yet wear a watch gifted by your grandson and live by its minutes, nay seconds. You wait for Saturday each day and on Saturday wait for me to come, though we can hardly talk much, yet you are sit through all the family conversations just watching our happy, laughing faces, or sit up at attention at the whiff of someone in stress, wanting to know what's wrong.

Every time you are ill, I go through the heart wrenching thought that I may lose you forever, yet I pray not for you to live but for you to go, without pain or trouble. We have telepathy, believe you me, for every time you think of me or ask ma for me, I am also thinking of you. You can sense when I am in stress or unwell and will ask ma to know if all is well. I am also thinking of you dad, and tell ma, I have been thinking of dad too, is he well?

We had your eldest grandson down here from the US, and clicked many snaps with you in the centre, for he knows this may be the last time he sees you before you go. We know it too.

You want me to write a book, you have been inspiring me to do one since you came to know my talent. Yet, I cannot pen one yet, for I want to write about you--of your struggles, of truth, honesty and justice, of haves and have nots, of dreaming big and making it bigger, of losing all yet not losing sanity, of rebuilding life from scratch, of love and giving...and many more good things I learnt from you.

You were up at my side when I gave my exams, urging me to sleep and not fret, keep the books under my pillow and all will go into my head. And, I believed you. You helped with debates, were my lone audience and critic when I practiced for elocution, were there to watch essay various roles on stage, were always there for me and me alone.

Love you dad, will complete this piece one day and will perhaps make it the preface of the book I pen one day...

DENIED

Nothing has changed...at least as far as accessibility to disabled in public institutions is concerned. It was a shocker for me when I was pointedly told that I might as well drop out of Law coz the campus law centre (as others) is inaccessible for the disabled...this by none other than the Dean. At least that guy is a gentleman. The attitude of the Professor in charge sent my blood pressure up...the guy needs some lessons in manners. If this is the way professors talk to pupils that too women and that too a handicap, I have little hope for our society. He not only needs some lessons in mannerisms but also a sensitisation course regarding rights of disabled and how never to talk down to someone seated on a wheelchair. Seems our whole system would benefit from it. Well it was a dream dashed. My husband & I had both sat for the entrance with much trepidation...after all returning to school after almost 2 decades is no joke...and had cleared with flying colours...first list! You know guys, our government has 3% reservation for handicaps in educational institutions. Not that I have ever used it as I do not consider myself intellectually inferior to anyone, yet i was left wondering at this farcical quota system. For pray, how are the wheelchair bound supposed to attend classes without ramps or any other arrangements? It was in 1984 that my bro had to drop out of SRCC over the same reason - inaccessibility. After so many years it still remains the reason for many never to see the hallowed portals of higher education institutions. I strongly feel that till we make our institutions accessible handicaps should be debarred from taking admission or allowed only after assessing their ability to make it to classes. Why waste their money, when they won't be able to attend college. With attendance becoming compulsory, they can't even seek exemption. All this talk of inclusive education system is so much crap. Bullshit! And I thank my lucky stars that I did not need a wheelchair back then in college. Else, where would I have been. Not what I am today certainly...self-sufficient, economically independent and happy! Guys education is the only route to empowerment of not only the economically weaker sections and the women but also of the disabled. Let's join hands to work towards a truly accessible and inclusive society for all.