#sareespeak #womenofsareespeak

#169 #SS 14/2022

#kanjivaram #silk #kanjivaramsilk

Auckland New Zealand celebrated Saree Speak’s 6th Birth Day.
A little belated.
But better late than never.
On Saturday 30th April 2022.
Thank You dear Vini Tandon Keni for your Vision 6 years ago.

Preparations for our 7th Meet began in March.
With just us deciding –
“a few of us would have lunch, no games, no fanfare, just sarees and light chat”.
This blew up, in a nice way, into what transpired on Saturday.
After online meetings, never earlier than 10pm, as that was what our schedules would allow, meetings with the restaurant owner, our WhatsApp and Messenger feeds constantly buzzing with queries and updates.
Saturday had Kirithika Kiki Sucheta Banerjee Vanitha Sarkkunan Kishori Telang, me arriving early to setup. Vanitha had a friend Shri Lakshmi in tow too. Poor Sandi Perumal had had dental surgery so could not attend.
Kiki had done the display boards with photos spanning the 6 years of Auckland SS. She’d printed guest lists, had trays with the door gifts. I brought sarees to decorate the venue and a Thai silk table cloth for our registration table.
The 60 ladies arrived, draped in their saree best, the theme being Autumnal shades, registered, were given a refreshing welcome drink.
Sucheta was MC for the day, I gave a welcome speech followed by Kishori conducting icebreakers while Kiki and Vanitha distributed door gifts.
Entrees were served as Swastika Ganguly, an international award winning actress, director, local tv anchor spoke about her inspirational journey, stressing that success requires passion and not to only expect monetary gain but to remain single mindedness in the pursuit of the arts.
The ladies then got droopy eyed after an exotic lunch but were revived almost immediately by Kiki’s online Kahoot quiz and cold mango, paan and kesar kulfi.
After a fun filled afternoon of mingling, clicking solo and group pics, the meet drew to a close.
The ladies left asking to be informed of the next meet and wanting to be involved in its planning and organization.

Today being Wednesday, managed to get this post in within 4 days – Rule #5.

More Pictures are in comments.
For a video of the participants please see Archana Passi Pabbi’s post.

Draped an orange-gold-yellow kanjivaram silk in line with the Autumn theme. Got husband to click a couple of shots before leaving home.

Adding an excerpt of my welcome speech below.
“Dear Ladies.
Wonderful to see such a great turnout.
This years marks Saree Speaks’ 6th birthday. On the 14th of April the FB group was created by a lovely lady from Goa, Vini Tandon Keni someone just like us, who wanted to drape more sarees and understand the various weaves. Today we stand at 165k globally.
Her dream has encouraged us to love our sarees, drape and redrape and feel good about this. We have a sisterhood now of beautiful like minded souls some of whom we’ve never even met, yet we feel we know them so well from their posts, stories. We also know that we don’t have to move mountains, speak in the UN, or be a fashionista or social media influencer to be termed inspirational.
We know that each of us are in our own rights, inspiring role models – to our friends families daughters nieces children.
And that’s why the ladies here and on the group have stories to tell, of beauty, hardships, joy, despair, these stories go side by side, hand in hand, for what is one without the other?
This is our 7th SS meet, the last one was in September and we held it over Zoom, different, yet a great meet.
Today, let’s have a great time, making new friends, eating, chatting but most of all, understanding that our Saree is classic, durable, wearable, sustainable and can be our go to outfit for any occasion.
Have a wonderful afternoon dear ladies”.