47/100. Freedom. Faith. Friends. Three things that cost nothing in terms of money. And are yet priceless.

Independence Day this year was special because all three came together for me. This day finally, three friends from school – one living halfway across the country, the other with her home halfway across the world – managed two hours together away from family, work and the thousand other commitments to meet and catch up.

Debjani has already featured in saree story 17. As for Kakali, she is one of the most genuine, generous and graceful women I have ever met. Quietly fun-loving, with one of the most infectious laughs ever, Kakali would be hard-pressed to name a person who dislikes her. And that is the thing about her – endearing to a fault.

The conversation ranged from the serious – what it means to be leading lives as Indian women in India and abroad – to the nostalgic as we laughed out loud at old memories. And bordered on the hysteric as we drove the servers at the restaurant mad and felt absolutely zero embarrassment at asking hip young strangers to take pictures of middle-aged us.

For those two hours, we were free to just be. Free to be faithful to what we had been and what we were now. Faith in freedom. Freedom in faith. And friendship in both was what made those two hours so special.

The saree I had chosen to wear is another of my favourites – a Sambalpuri cotton in green with a saffron border and unusual fish motifs in white running down in stripes. Yes, the saree was chosen specifically because of its colours. But that this was saree number 47 – the year India became independent, was sheer serendipity.