100sareepact Day 55. I raided my Mami’s (aunt) wardrobe yesterday and brought home four saris to wear. This is the first one of them… a yellow and green batik on mulmul. When I first started wearing sari, mostly to weddings, I would often wear my Mami’s saris and, in fact, at times her blouses too. So one wedding saw me wear a magenta benarasi sidha pallu. At another wedding, I wore a beautiful jamun-coloured baluchari that had been part of her trousseau. A navy blue kanjeevaram with red and yellow Ganga-Jamuna border on another occasion.
She went away on a holiday soon after I joined the pact and I had been waiting for her to return, not the least for the saris, but also because I was missing the affection she wraps me and my mother in. And not just us. I remember one of my mother’s aunts, very dear to all of us, always say “Madhumoni shobaike kachhe tane (she draws everyone close with her love)”. The threads of her love are strong and her heart as warm as her smile, a smile that lights up her eyes. And when she laughs, her eyes shed a tear or two, tears of joy.
The sky too was crying today and looked grey and depressed. But when I stepped out in this sari, I spotted a ray of sunlight streak across the sky. It was as if the sky had smiled too. Fleeting it might have been, but it was a smile alright.