Of New Years and Birthdays, of Double celebrations

#sareespeak #womenofsareespeak

#168 #SS 13/2022

#tussar #printedsilk

A busy but lovely week.
14th April.
New Year coincided with the 6th year birthday celebrations of Saree Speak.
My Go To Feel Good Place, thanks to dear Vini Tandon Keni and All of you.
Happy 6th birthday Saree Speak.
Happy New Year.

Had a dry run at work in preparation for taking on some mind boggling training.
Got home knackered after shuttling shuttling from shuttle to car park to home through eve-of-holiday traffic. Gaia (that’s the name I’ve given google maps) gave me false hopes initially by declaring in her matter of fact voice that “despite congestion on State Highway 1, you are on the fastest route..” and “you will reach your destination in 33 minutes”, and then proceeded to take me along these by lanes, unknown roads. She then without any qualms increased the journey time to a little under an hour.
Got home, tea. Prepped dinner.
Kiribath – coconut milk rice; Ponggal – milk with jaggery rice are celebratory auspicious food for the New Year in Sri Lanka/Malaysia.
Hadn’t had time in the morning so did a Malaysian take on it for Dinner.
Nasi Lemak. Vegan.
And then the Ds and son in law turned up. D1 and husband had fetched D2 from the airport.
A prayer, exchange of gifts and we settled down to a hot meal of coconut milk rice, vegan fried anchovies/dried mushroom stems, chilli ong choy, soy protein rendang, vegan sambal, peanuts, cucumber. Followed by a dessert of Malaysian kuih-muih gifted by a friend – onde-onde, kuih lapis, kuih ketayap.

It felt so good, so complete, so fulfiiled having us all just be-ing, under one roof.
And I kept telling them over and over again how happy I felt.

Here’s a picture clicked that night. In a simple printed tussar with repeat blocks of a homely village scene. Dark Green print against a cream saree. “Borrowed” from one of the Ds.
Not the best click though but
An 11 on the 1-10 happiness scale.

PS. Added Bonus. Met dear Sakhis from India, UK, over a video chat at 11pm my time. Thank you so much dear friends.