#100sareepact 38/100
Another Sunday but not just another Sunday : It’s my 38th in the #100sareepact and a brand new Kerala Kasavu I am wearing for the first time . Picked it up in Trivandrum on my last visit there when work took me to The Regional Cancer Institute (I was born in Trivandrum and spent innumerous childhood summer holidays at my grandparents’ home while growing up and now every trip is Nostalgia Nostalgia Nostalgia)
So there is this cult Kasavu store there that you enter directly from one of the streets behind the Padmanabhaswamy Temple through a low, little wooden door bowing down to save your head and then it is a magic land of the most beautiful set mundu , sareees, veshtis for the men and the typical super absorbent towels without which I go nowhere – the best to dry your hair and wrap around your head after your shower …oh but I am already digressing . I had gone to pick up a couple of sarees for my Mom and ended up buying this for myself – just a bit of gold and pink in a nice slim border in a silken smooth swathe of cotton – all of six long yards ensuring you get your pleats and long enough Pallu.
And where was I wearing it to? To the Chai for Cancer Adda being hosted by our friends, the most amazing. fun loving , affectionate and totally fundu film maker couple ( Of Listen Ameya fame) Geeta and Avinash Kumar Singh . Their decision to host an Adda was typical of their enthusiastic and “sensitive to the right stuff” approach to life. Having attended the first ever Adda at my home last year , they embraced the spirit of the venture and said OK Next year we do this and call over our friends and neighbours and that’s exactly what they did. Exactly what I hoped they would do .
I met Geeta and Avinash a couple of years ago when, through a common friend’s introductions I invites them to showcase their brilliant Listen Ameya at one of the Bimal Roy Memorial Film Society Screenings . Now this is one of my “involvements” that I enjoy being a part of very much. Something that gives me a little break from my work with Cancer ( not that I really need it) and keeps me in the company of my dear friend Rinki di, daughter of the late Bimal Roy and a few other likeminded cinema loving people – discerning and demanding . We screen films of all genres, one every month and we try and bring the film makers along with the film so that some interesting discussions follow each screening.
It could have stopped at that but some chemistry between us and Geeta and Avinash endeared themselves so much to Venky (my husband who they adore call Appa by now) and myself that now no occasion at either of our homes goes without mutual attempts to being there together – birthdays , random Sunday Lunches , other film shows, book readings and their own script readings .
Incredibly talented, humble, down to earth and super cool parents to their two young sons , they are like a breath of fresh air in our lives always bubbling over with fun and laughter and their home a beautiful , welcoming little haven . Music and laughter are permanent ingredients in whatever they serve and the hours go by ….as it did at their Adda where indeed all day friends and neighbours walked in adding to the fun and merriment ; all the while focused on the cause they raised their cups of Chai to .
There was an added moment of merriment when I dropped a glass of water on my new Kasavu when everyone said Oh thank God that was not the Chai you dropped over your lovely saree – what an awful waste that would have been !!!!!