When Swapna visited in Dec 2018, she wanted to buy “Madhubani” paintings and dupattas that had Madhubani painting done on them. Dilli Haat, one of my favourite places in Delhi always has “Madhubani” paintings for sale, so we went there. As luck would have it, there was a handloom and handicrafts mela on and not only did we get Madhubani paintings, dupattas with Madhubani painting but we also bought sarees !! No surprises there 🙂
This saree was bought at an award winning Bengali weaver’s stall right at the end of Dilli Haat. His collection of sarees were really vibrant and he was trying to sell the jamdanis that he had woven. I have a couple of Jamdani sarees so I wasn’t buying another one just yet. We were about to leave without buying anything when Krishnan spotted this one. Its a beautiful deep purple with temple design in the body and the pallu looks like Ghicha but am not sure. Its not Kantha work, and its not machine embroidery either, its woven this way and the white thread is extra. I have misplaced the weaver’s card so unable to put his name next to his creation.
Am sure one of the saree experts will figure out what this is but its drapes beautifully and is just so comfortable in the sweltering heat.
I wore it yesterday for Nisha’s birthday. This year I plan on wearing a new saree each month on important days. So far, I wore a new sari on Appa’s birthday in Jan, Amma’s birthday in Feb, the day Krishnan and I met in March, of course my birthday in April, Krishnan’s birthday in May and for June I chose Nisha’s birthday. The girl I met three years after I got married as a 15 year old, who went from calling me “aunty” to Bindu courtesy Hewitt and ended up as being a very dear friend. Nisha introduced “dabeli” to us in Vashi and its she who nagged me into blogging and am glad she did. Her parents Raji and Mani have been with us through the best and worst times of our life and when Raji left us last year, it was a terrible shock. It felt as though one minute she was full of life and gone the next. All of us are still coming to terms with her passing on ….. the most affected of course being Nisha, Vidya and Mani. I decided to wear this saree for Nisha’s birthday because she is very special in my life and this is my way of telling her that I have her back as she goes forth in life. Happy birthday Nisha and of course a warm hug and lots of love.
The neckpiece is actually beads made of sea-shells that I bought in Kanyakumari in 2007 and Kashiana had helped make them into a string many years back.
Thank you for remembering Amma so fondly Bindu