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.