Seven years ago when I landed at the University of Missouri, a very sweet girl with a warm smile welcomed me at the lobby of University Place apartments and helped me move my luggage to my apartment, offered me a hot cup of chai and again came back and offered me her cell-phone so that I could call my folks back in India to tell them I had reached safely. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and Tapashree has been a precious confidante ever since. Those gupshup and chai sessions at 435, long walks around Columbia and several long conversations even after I moved back to India; were where we shared everything that mattered, work issues, relationship matters, family stuff, questions towards self discovery and all sweet an sour moments in life… Even today, her infectious enthusiasm, positivity and her ever charming smile give me a lot of strength in trying times. So, number 28 on the #100sareepact today, is a saree that has strands of our friendship woven together. A Bengali taanter saree in yellow and red, was a gift from Tapashree at the time of her wedding a couple of years ago, and it’s woven in her ancestral town of Bardhaman in West Bengal; and I wore it again for her birthday this weekend.. I had no picture of us together in a saree, except for the one below from her wedding that she shared with me, also in the picture are her husband and our friend Eshani.