8/100 – This heavy zari and silk saree is perhaps where it all began.

My ehee ceremony (when pre-adolescent newar girls are married off to a ‘bel’ fruit in Nepal), happened when I was nine. Few days before the ceremony, I was asked to pick a saree at a shop in Bhedasingh in old market place near New Road, Kathmandu. Excited that I was actually being asked to choose instead of my grandmother making the decision for me, I chose this maroon saree that I thought, back then, looked like a constellation. Moroon is my childhood favorite color and those shiny zari work dazzled me. It’s the shiniest saree I own and my mom gets all the credit for preserving it.

I wore this saree for the first time when I was 11 for my cousin’s wedding. It was the first time I realized the power of a saree – Just about everyone at the wedding came to speak to me and asked me who helped me put on the saree.