#100sareepact Day 71. Back to work after a week’s break, I needed something to lift my mood and wearing a sari does just that. This sari is new to my wardrobe and having got it the day I returned from my holiday, I decided to drape this one.
This sari belonged to (my husband’s) Boro Jethima. She was the sweetest old lady I have ever met. Alistair MacLean to Hanuman Chalisa, she would read any printed word she could lay her hands on. She was also hooked to cricket. If there was a match, she would definitely be glued to the TV. She was also an expert cook and brimming with energy. Even well past 80, she would spend hours in the kitchen scraping coconut to make her trademark sweets that I had the privilege of tasting. And did I mention the twinkle in her eye? Among the many things that lit up those grey eyes was a mention of her granddaughters. They were her life and she theirs.
This sari post would be incomplete without a mention of another person. Mita Mashi, whose artistic touch helped transform the simple kora (off-white) Tangail with a thin grey border into something a bit dressier. With a few strokes of her paintbrush, she dressed up the sari a bit without changing its character, exactly as I had wanted. I had suggested the pink and grey colour scheme and she agreed that would be just right. Coincidentally, this colour scheme is also very close to the sari Mita Mashi had gifted me on my wedding – an off-white tussar with pink threadwork. But Mita Mashi’s role in my wedding was far greater than that. She was the one who decorated my tottwo (trays laden with gifts for the bride, groom and his family that are traditionally artistically decorated) over days. I held on to the thermocol cutouts that she had used for many years.