I wore this saree for the saree date. Long awaited and finally on that beautiful Sunday 8 of us ladies chit chatted and talked about our sarees. The Saree date post will come soon but today I will talk about my Brother in Law.
This Saree is Seema’s engagement saree and came with me couple of trips back. Somehow I couldn’t find an appropriate occasion to wear it. Then came the saree date and I couldnt wear anything else.
I grew up in a town/district called Balaghat, we didn’t have a very diverse population and for us south India didn’t mean much more than the standard filmi knowledge, Idlee Dosa, Coffee and geographical locations and temples. we had few friends who were Tamilian, telugu, Kannadigas and Malayali but they all were MPiad south Indians. They spoke Hindi and celebrated North Indian festivals and ate parathas. They were like us when they were with us. their connection to South India was their yearly trips to south India and food and languages inside their home
Then I moved to Pune, not too different. Singapore was the place where I learnt about prominently Tamilians. But again we all were young so custom, rituals didn’t do much in our day today life.
For me the real various cultural introduction took place when I met Jay first time. My sister, Seema was working in Chennai, met Jay who is Malyali born and brought up in Chennai. Ashish, I and kids went to India for the first time after moving to USA and Seema and Jay got engaged.
I went back soon enough to be part of their wedding. With Jay I learnt so much. About the Kerala, Malayallies, Tamilians and Chennai. Every trip to India I spend time with him and learnt something new. They moved to Bangalore and In 2005 we went on a trip to Kanyakumari, Madurai and Rameshwaram. in 2012 we went on a trip to Kerala. last 14 years my darling brother in law has become my adopted brother.
I have become a very diverse person beacuse of my brothers in law. 3 of them taught me so much about culture integration and helped me become a very well informed and open person. My saree stories are not complete without him.