I have not written my sari story for quite some time. It’s not that I don’t wear this traditional look ;in fact I look for a chance to wear one but somehow laziness took the better of me. Last Sunday got another opportunity to drape a sari. We had a little gathering at a friend’s place where all of us were asked to wear dhakai jamdani.
Jamdani (Bengali: জামদানি) is one of the finest muslin textiles of Bengal, produced in Dhaka District, Bangladesh for centuries.
The historic production of jamdani was patronized by imperial warrants of the Mughal emperors. Under British colonialism, the Bengali jamdani and muslin industries rapidly declined due to colonial import policies favoring industrially manufactured textiles. In more recent years, the production of jamdani has witnessed a revival in Bangladesh.
Since morning, I was wondering which one to pick up….the yellow green, the grey one …will the red look too loud……but the new handloom blouse was somehow drawing me towards it and so red was what I finally chose. My beige and brown blouse mad a nice contrast to my red dhakai and to accentuate the look, I went for copper colo bangles and earrings. Leaving my hair open with just a red small clutch and a red bindi….voila, I was ready for the evening!!!
As each one of us arrived at kuhu di’s place…….all in beautiful shades of dhkai jamdani, it was a riot of colors………orange, yellow, green, blue and me in red. Coincidentally, Kuhu di and Chinmoyee di wore the same color combination (blue and white) and I wanted to take a click standing in between the two nilamboris.