38/100. Beautifully shaded in pools of cool and warm aqua which flow into each other, this saree appealed instantly to me when I saw it peeking out from a heap of rejected sarees, waiting to be folded and put back on display. Once I pulled it out, I saw a delicate, almost faint black print – like pencil drawings that are fading – that was not visible from even two feet away. But once you noticed it, you couldn’t but see it. There was nothing obvious about the saree and this subtlety drew me in. Three more minutes and the saree was mine.

This saree does not hold a particular story in its folds. It is instead, a cocoon for a particular state of mind. This is my ‘isle of calm’ saree. For those times when I need a little space around me – to breathe, to reflect, to just be. An extrovert I am, but the Cancerian in me does surface once in a while. And I NEED pockets of being alone if I am to function. The only difference? I don’t retreat into the proverbial Cancerian shell, but I do walk onto the tiny isle in my mind that only has space for two or three others. A little time there and I am ready to swim back into the business of living again.

This is the only saree that I have taken out and draped on different occasions when all that was on the agenda was spending time with myself alone at home. Wrapped in the delicate softness of this saree whose aquamarine colours reflects the water of the sign I was born under, I have spent those special, stolen, me-time hours reading, writing, rearranging my bookshelves, baking, checking on my plants or just dreaming the day away.

Me-time is at a premium right now, so I took my ‘alone’ state of mind to work today. I wore this saree with another old favourite – a black top from Allen Solly that looks unadorned but has a broad, vertical panel of delicate lace running from neckline to hem.

And as I finish writing this, it strikes me as very strange that I have absolutely no memory of which store in which city I bought this saree from. This is especially strange because I am cursed with an elephantine memory. I remember the heap, I remember paying, but I remember nothing else. Well, maybe, the saree also wants to be just ‘her’. No past, no history…