Pink.
The colour of a newly awakened day, or an in between transitory period.
Pink.
Neither red, nor crimson, nor magenta, but just
Pink.
The colour of flushed cheeks, soft lips.
The colour of
Happiness or Sadness or a neither one nor the other feeling.
Probably the colour of sweet contentment.
Soft, creamy, sweet pink.
Deepavali Diwali pink.
The colour of the lotus on Anusha’s rangoli.
The colour of the dessert Suresh is preparing.
The icing on Vindhya’s warm freshly baked cookies.
Vindhya is in her room, after a marathon eggless baking session, having churned out lemon cake, plain cake, chocolate cake, oat cookies, choc chip cookies, shortbread biscuits, cornflake cookies.
Anusha packed the goodies into air tight containers then set about preparing the artwork for the rangoli to be filled in tomorrow.
Suresh is using my kitchen creatively for desserts.
And I am in my bedroom,
Feeling comfy, warm, content, as the day has been long, but fruitful.
Feeling extremely pink, typing this, about to doze off.
Looking forward to tomorrow, a hectic day of preparation for the evening.
Pink, the calm today before the organised chaos tomorrow.
In a beautiful PINK kanjivaram with green and greyish
Pink borders and pallu, draped a few days ago.
Purchased in Chennai 15 years ago. Watched a grand daughter drape this over her grandma, while I waited with bated breath, for her to decide not to take the Saree, and when she did, meaning, when she left it on the counter, I picked it up without hesitation.
My elder one was quite ‘curious’ as to why my husband was getting sarees for me, and he replied that he did this all the time when he visited India. She ensured that he visited the lehenga choli /churidhar/salwar kameez section and got her and her sister items to compensate for the shopping he’d done for me! Sigh. Girls and their fathers.
Now,
Needless to say, a Saree for me means one for each daughter too.
Let’s get back to
Pink.
The colour of transitioning of daughters, being helpful, being responsible, on the threshold of womanhood.

Long day at work, felt like I’d been performing for some clients and their children, when conducting a technology assessment.

Got home, exhausted and no one was home.

Nice feeling at first, then, got a little uneasy.

An empty nester obviously coming home to an empty nest.

Husband at work still, one girl at work, one at her placement.

Sipped my tea, continued with some office work, calls, notes etc, and surprisingly, at the back of my mind, started to feel quite pleased and proud. Probably the tea did it.

Girls are growing up, let me rephrase that, have grown up. One health care professional, the other fast on her way to becoming one. Good, responsible, kind, compassionate beings (when they want to be 😶). Driving to and fro work. Making some decisions on their own, double checking with their father and me, most times.

Pulling my thoughts back to the Swept-off-all-our-feet-as-usual weekend.

Anusha vacuumed and did quite a good job, when you consider my very high expectations.

Vindhya prepped a list of groceries to get to start her churning out cakes and bikkies for Deepavali.

And Suresh, well he worked on the lotus pond he was constructing. The final product will be showcased in the Home and Garden Speak page, Wait for it..

Me – I cooked a relatively tasty lunch, a friend of mine used to say, (not sure, if it was her own words), ‘self praise is a sign of international disgrace’. I suspect she only said that to ensure the words rhymed.

Ate, napped, hot tea. Baths, showers included.

Got dressed for an evening music festival. Younger one had assignments to complete, older one attended with us.

Draped this light silk, almost like paper, bright budgie green Saree, with gold borders and pallu. Body has triangles in pink, gold and various shades of green. Matched with the saree’s blouse of the same green, but wth gold sleeves and thin gold stripes on body. Definitely, a Happy Saree. Gifted by my mum 5+ years ago after she’d visited Coimbatore.

After a Divine evening of Carnatic and Hindustani vocal and instrumental music, met up with some friends who had preordered dinner as we were very very late.

Good music, food, conversation, friends, family, and in general, Life.

So what more can one ask for? We are all so blessed, each and every one of us, if we only remember to stop, take a breath and ponder on the moment.

Life without limits. The motto of the organisation I work for. Inspiring.
Who is it meant for?

I have a wonderful, elderly client who wanted to be able to use a smartphone independently, confidently. Lessons commenced. At the end of the training period, said client was able to independently call, text, use YouTube. He wanted to know about social media and email, and I asked him why he’d want to do that, when he had never done it before. Personally, I believed he wouldn’t have any use for it and so I asked him to call me back in a few months, telling him to practise and reinforce what he’d been taught.
I didn’t expect the call months later. He said his family were insisting that he be trained on email and Facebook. And so with a lot of trepidation, we started our training. An hour to an hour and a half each week. We worked on emails, then moved onto social media, went on to web browsing, music, recording voice memos, adaptive daily living apps and before we knew it, we were done. At every class, we’d clarify any queries. Sometimes, when I’d ask him if he’d like to revise anything, he’d say he was good with that. He told me that whenever he couldn’t sleep, he would listen to the recordings of lessons at 2am and that was how he was able to get everything down to a pat.

And there you have it. The answer to my question.
I suppose this is what is meant by living life without limits.
It’s not just the person who is meant to live the unlimiting or limitless life, but the people in his life, who are meant to encourage, empower and believe in the person’s capabilities.
Similarly so for the six yard stretch of material.
Versatile. Unlimiting. Limitless in its possibilities, in its use.

A much loved, well worn light cotton to cook in, a rich silk for a temple visit, concert or performance, a tussar silk for en evening dinner, a bespoke, designer Saree for an Awards night – the options, choices are endless.
And so, here I am in various sarees to illustrate that this simple, humble drape, that has adorned our women for aeons, is limitless in its use, has, dare I say, like us women, boundless, immeasurable latent energy, waiting to be unleashed.
A Saree for dosai making, a Saree for puja, a Saree for a performance, a Saree for a celebrity awards function.
And in all this, the Saree has the ability to make one feel confident, beautiful, on top of the world, loved and knowing that one can live life without limits. Stay blessed Saree Sakhis.

An aunt of mine, an English teacher, when on holiday with us in Melbourne, way back in 1984, when I had just started my degree at RMIT, now RMUT, visited the St Kilda beach. She put on a floppy sun hat, had on a peachy pink Saree, plopped herself on the warm sand, and declared for all and sundry,
“Don’t I look
Like a Peach
On the Beach
I do Beseech”.
My aunt has since passed on, but her lovely limerick rings loud and clear, as I sit on, not the beach, but my antique sofa, an antique myself, draped in this gorgeous peachy organza kora silk Saree, with gold borders and pallu, gold Veenas and percussion instruments embroidered all over. Gifted by a dear friend last Navarathri.

Disclaimer, Warning, Whatever – LONG RAMBLING POST. Approach at own risk.

Mysterious Duality.
The theory of opposites.
Bear with me please.
I have tons to write on Navarathri with lots of saree photos but I need to pen my thoughts on paper, more accurately, on Notes on my red covered iPad.

Received some rather sad news last week. Sudden passing away of a friend. More sad news which I am unable to reveal. Then some exhilaratingly joyous news.
Digested most, if not all of it. Slowly understood, accepted that one cannot exist without the other.
How do I measure the happiness that I feel, if I have not felt sadness? How do I know the room is dark, if I have not seen light?
And that there are many shades of dark, of light, many frequencies? of pain, grief, joy, bliss.

Learnt in maths, about the binary system – ones and zeros. Of logic. A and not A. Then when I studied computer science, and subsets within that vast stream of knowledge, artificial intelligence, machine learning, realised that there are certainties, uncertainties, paradoxes, and that logic is allowed to be fuzzy. Yes. An expert system? Prediction system? Knowledge-based system? we’d developed could diagnose a patient with a particular type of anaemia with a certainty factor of some amount. At that age, I believed this to only be applicable to machines, maths, physics. Over the years, have come to understand that this is a simulation, more accurately, an emulation of the theories of the Universe.
Those of us who dabble in some maths and physics will know that relational logic is a nonaxiomatic, nonlinear form of reasoning, and is not constrained by the laws that govern conventional mathematics and deductive logic. The latter state that “an entity cannot have both attributes A and not-A, and that entities can have either the attribute A or not-A, but nothing in between”.
We know for a fact that such laws cannot possibly apply to the Universe in its entirety. So many entities possess both attributes A and not-A : none of us is entirely feminine or masculine, having characteristics of both genders. The world we inhabit is not black and white, but has shades of grey.
This world, to some, may seem attractive, to others, strange, uncomfortable. A matter of individual perception and preference?

Growing up, I used to think Lewis Carroll’s classics featuring his seemingly confused heroine Alice were masked horror stories for children. Why then would Alice be constantly changing size, being in claustrophobic situations, zooming through rabbit holes, meeting the weirdest outlandish creatures.
And then, reading, re reading the Classic, some where along the way, the older, maybe thinking-me realised much of the characters, quotes represent our version of life. The previously misunderstood (by me) smiling Cat spoke such wise words “We’re all mad here” and aren’t we all? I mean who decides who’s mad and what being mad constitutes.
Philosophical-without-knowing-it Alice says “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” Isn’t that the quintessential mystery we are all trying to solve, to unearth who we are?

Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a brilliant mathematician/lecturer at Christ Church College, Oxford. And boy did he know a thing or two about logic. He wrote books about it! But as his profound illogical stories reveal, he intuitively knew that our world does not fit perfectly into our conventional reasoning patterns. And that is why his classics have struck a deep chord in the child and adult me. Because his world is Real. And we have stoped acknowledging that in our living today.
The story of Through the Looking Glass begins with Alice at home in a room that is familiar to her. Then she wonders what life would be like on the other side of the mirror. She pretends that there is a way of getting through it, and she suddenly finds herself in the looking-glass room, peering into the room she has just left.

So what did I want to say here? Did I want to convey that for Something to exist the opposite or the negative of it must be there too for us to appreciate the Something? Or did I also want to say that like Alice, things look different when you’re on the in looking out or the out looking in? Perspectives? Contexts? A case of grass being greener?
I now have no idea why I mooted this in the first place. Probably because I was sad, then happy, then sad, then happy and the happiness multiplied and became more real compared to the sadness? Or was it just because I wanted to showcase my Saree? Left behind for me by my mum when she visited in June. (Matched with a silk black blouse with gold sleeves from another Saree). A soft cotton gossamer silk, with translucent checks, white body and black borders and pallu, a case of A and NOT A?
OR,

Let’s use fuzzy descriptions, a creamy body and greyish borders and pallu.

Different planes of understanding. What the teacher believes she is conveying. What the student decides to imbibe. Even if the lessons will come in handy, years from now.
“Dear Aunty Bavani. You have only taught me veena for about a year but during that time, I have learnt so much, not just veena. In class with you, I learn what movies/series would be good to watch when I’m older, the latest, most interesting news as well as other things so Thanks for agreeing to be my guru. Love, ..” Oh and before I forget, she’s not even 8 yet or 7? Slap on the hand for me. STOP chatting with Veena Moms during class. Sigh.
Received this blessing, amongst many beautiful blessings from my dedicated children, torchbearers of this divine art.
Here I am, at the end of Vijayadasmi 2019, draped in a sunny handloom silk with blue and flame-red block prints and orangish pallu. Am at peace, happy, fulfilled, content. The yellow, I believe, represents hope for the future of this artform, my certainty that the children will carry this art to greater heights, heights of excellence and perfection. Stay blessed all art lovers/rasikas, art sishyas, and artistes.

Disclaimer – No offence intended. A must share, though.

My husband, like his father, had a rather quaint but endearing habit of maintaining a scrapbook of sorts. A hard cover exercise book, in which he’d note down important dates, events, milestones, poems, and stick articles, letters. A year and 3 days into our marriage, he discovered a lovely poem about the Saree which had been published in the New Straits Times, Malaysia on the 11th of December 1992.
Because of my growing fixation, obsession with the Saree, he reminded me of this poem. Yesterday, I saw him rummaging through an old sports canvas bag while I was getting ready to go for the Auckland Diwali Festival performance. He kept pulling out various old photos and memoirs from his childhood. Suddenly, he extracted his old scrapbook, leafed through the pages excitedly and found this poem. He read it aloud, then asked me to share it on our Saree Speak page.
So here it is. A beautiful bitter sweet poem. I shall reproduce it here to ensure it is accessible for one and all. Will post photo too.
The article with the poem reads as follows :
‘To the organisers of The Kuala Lumpur (why not Malaysia?) World Poetry Reading, we commend the following poem titled The Second Skin by Satyendra Srivastava, from London, by the way :
This one is not
The Sita of Ramayana
Nor from Ayodhya
She is Sita from Chapel Street
Hounslow Middlesex
Sick with
Chronic heart disease
When the nurse asked
her to change
Into something more comfortable
Sita replied
This is the most
comfortable thing
Next to my skin I have
The sari is my second skin
I would like to die
wearing it
It is my pahchan
my identity
Her husband standing nearby
Smiled happily and
Told the nurse
‘My dear
Not very long ago
But certainly long
before you were born
Some strange
Englishmen went to India
They wanted to turn
Indians into
Dark coloured Brits
But they miserably
failed
You know why
Because the
Sitas of India
Like this one
Never discarded
Their second skin’.

Here I am in My Second Skin, a gold and cream checked Kanjivaram silk, with gold and peachy pink borders and pallu. Clicked during my students’ Navarathri temple performance. One photo with fellow Sakhis edited out, the other shows them also draped in their comfortable second skin – Melanie Jeyakumar, ravishing, in a flame red and orange silk, Urvashi Shinde, gorgeous, in a baby pink tussar silk while Punguzhali is the epitome of grace and calm in a sea blue embroidered Saree with purple and gold borders and pallu.
Embrace your second skin, Saree Sakhis.

An absolutely beautiful day. Spring. Spitting rain. Yes, spitting, not drenching. Morning fare. Music. Carnatic. Hindustani. Vocal. Veena. Mridhangam. Sitar. Harmonium. Tabla.
And some street food chaat shared with veena mom/friend Saree sakhi Shakthi Jeyashankar, whose photo I cannot post as she is not in a Saree. 😎
Students performed as part of Auckland Diwali festival. 4 blossoming Vainikas with 2 budding Mridhangists. The crowd was floored. We had a lovely Pakeha lady dancing away to the music.
Morning prior to this had been busy as usual. No house cleaning as that had somehow been done during the week. But Saree Sakhi Melanie Jeyakumar had presented us with pasili Kirai/greens from her vegetable patch and I felt this pressing need to cook that. Let me rephrase, hubby pressed me to cook that, even going so far as to say he would pick the leaves, clean the greens for me. Sent him off, watched him do the garden from my kitchen window and prepared kirai thanni saar/watery lentils and greens. Mine was not watery, I had the audacity to add thick coconut cream to it, along with black pepper, tadka/thalippu/tempering spices, lots of green and dried red chillies. I have this bad habit of adulterating any recipe I get, then claiming, as Simon Cowell advises participants in his music idol reality shows, that I have made the recipe “my own”. 🤪
Also made a standard potato podimas, once again adulterated with chilli flakes and a dash of lemon juice. And arranged in a designer like fashion on kitchen island top, packets of store bought cassava chips, pickles from dear Melanie, achar made by sister in law when visiting here.
Anyway, drove to Shakthi’s home, got into her car. Performance done and dusted. Home. Tea. Rested. Briefly.
Draped this simple onion pink bodied, green and gold pallu and bordered cotton silk with kantha work. Body and pallu have varying sizes of diamond shaped embroidery in green and gold. Light, beautiful, akin to spring leafy greens and flowery pinks. Photos show me posing at home, pre performance, then at city, covered as it was cold. Close up reveals my un-dyed hair 🤓.
More photos of model are in Vogue.
Hah! Got you there for a split second! 😂😅🤣
Got ready for evening Vocal Arangetram. That will be another post as that’s another gorgeous Saree with a story behind it. Oh and PS. A backlog of sarees to post. Watch this space.

..complete with Photo Shoot.

Spoiler Alert! This is not an anecdote. This is a long post. To paraphrase, this will make you yawn… a Yarn.

Imagine golden honey dribbling off a spoon against the sun. That’s the golden rich mustardy colour of my silk saree. The saree has taken on an orange hue in the photos 😞. Border and pallu are in a deep maroon and gold with checks, mangos, korvais.

Wore this for my daughter’s veena programme that evening. But before we left home, after we’d loaded car with amplifier, accessories and instruments, I got my elder girl to take some flattering cover girl-standard shots. I regretted asking her a few minutes later.

“Amma, too much light. No not near the pond, the background is too distracting. Yes. good. Stand against the wooden fence and not too near the dustbins. Now look up, chin down, no mum, chin down down down, head up”.

How on earth does one put her chin down and head up at the same time, and paste a not too bothered, casually confident smile on one’s countenance, all the while patiently waiting for madam boss to click that Kodak Photograph of the Year Award.

And Click she did. Not one but.. too many to count. I can’t for the life of me, understand, why my girls, when asked to take a shot or two, take multiple photos. When I have to select a photo or two to post in my SS group, I am transported back to my childhood when we used to solve puzzles on the last few pages of mum’s magazine Spot the Differences. Except that the difference here is a milimetre lift of the hand or a 0.2 degree tilt of head to the right.

Sorry, i digress.
Lets get back to my photo having been taken near the wooden fence. I looked like I was 5 sizes smaller from the waist down and told my elder girl in no uncertain terms that I looked stunted. She appeared flabbergasted, “Mum these are how photos are taken”.

In that split second, I understood the Deep-and-Meaningful secrets of Cyber-Space-Floating photos. That explained why the girls’ selfies always had that heart shaped kewpie doll look with heads larger than bodies.

Time was running out. Second girl and husband in the car. Got my daughter to finally capture this way-too-relaxed pose on my front stairs. (I was yawning by this time). She didnt leave it at that either. She adjusted my saree, my chin, the angle of my head, my toes sticking out from under the saree, removed my specs which had turned dark due to the sun, told me how to place my arms, thank goodness having 2 hands is the norm, and voila, she clicked just under 10 times.

To show my gratitude to her, how am I to just post one shot..hence the three taken by her and the saree close ups by me.

Weekend Saree 3 of 3.
Sunday.
Sakhis I must start this post with a profound sincere apology. Very poorly shot photos. To be more accurate, I completely forgot to pose. So I have added some collage of weird shots in which you will see the Saree. I will however provide you with a clear description 🤗.
Sunday started off well enough after an intense but enjoyable Saturday.
Didn’t have to cook as I had left over dishes from Saturday and my friend had packed some delicious food for us after the dinner.
Got up early as some friends were visiting in the morning to invite us to their son’s upcoming wedding. Before they arrived, I did a quick vacuum of hall, living, kitchen, garage, bathrooms and corridoor. Some even quicker dusting of tables, mirrors, furniture to give the house a semblance of neatness. OCD me then proceeded to place dettol wipes, glass cleaner, vacuum cleaner NEATLY against corridoor wall in the hope of being able to complete cleaning later in the day. That was Sunday. Today is Wednesday. Everything is as it was on Sunday.
Anyway, after visitors had left, had my classes, found some kids hadn’t practised enough, ranted about the importance of practice, heated up lunch, quick light lunch, left family to eat, got ready for students’ performance at Senior Citizens’ Meet.
Gave a short speech at the beginning, describing India’s national intsrument, how ancient it is, the art of playing the instrument, songs to be played. Was going to go into reflexology, meditation, thank goodness I had a twinge of a senior moment then and forgot what I was going to say. Children played very well. (Videos and photos are on my personal feed and in an arts website). Guests were both touched and enthralled by the music and the beautiful instrument. Am also so proud of the little ones who pulled it all together at such short notice.
Had some tea, and my friend, Anju, who also happens to be my doctor, served me a plate of celery and carrot sticks. I took one, politely declined the rest, then insisted on having a melt in the mouth scone, which I forced her to have too. Heavenly. Only one word to describe the SCONE. See video.
Got home, and in my haste to do 101 little things, I took off the Saree without clicking any shots and that too, I think, because my camera women/stylists were out for a movie and dinner.
So I apologise again. I am draped in a thick grey silk with red, mustard, white borders and Temple korvais, and a simple red, gold and green striped pallu. Gifted to me by an immensely special important person, the last gift before passing on.
Shots show :
1. My back shot, an attempt to replicate Vini’s pose? Albeit a failed attempt .😎🤪
2. Me sampling THAT scone
3. Me telling the world that I wasn’t going to eat the raw sticks but that I was going to have said scone. Video attached.

4. My Saree, border, pallu, as an afterthought.
Have a wonderful week ahead Sakhis😂😂😂🙏😎