I love wearing the sari. Half the time I spend on the internet is spent looking up varieties and shades and styles of this grand-new-old apparel. The other day, my greedy eyes caught the sight of these beautiful fluffy and light leheriya saris on www.indubindu.com. I can’t seem to get enough of feasting my eyes on those beauties.

My eyes lurk, linger and stare uninhibitedly almost luridly at those pieces of fabric which look tender,exotic and traditional all together.Saris make me go green with envy, weak at my knees and frail in my bones, just one look at of these vibrant colorful fabric dancing in the breeze, the tassles, the designs, I am hooked!

I treasure with pride the Kosa silk saris, I would buy from https://mrignayani.com/ , those quaint little outlets tucked in the streets of Indore. It helped that the schools I worked in Indore be it http://www.apsindore.com/ or the www.dalycollege.org/    always gave us the poor hard working teachers an occasion or two to flaunt our sari collection. It was never a disappointment of course, with teachers  digging out the best and the most unique of their beloved sari collection to don on a special day or two. I am always in awe of the ladies dressed to kill in their exquisite saris on every excuse of an occasion, at the school that you just can’t help standing by to admire.

As always I am a little too biased to the good times I spent in Indore, so the famed Maheswari sarees, vibrant in colors and light in texture is always a favorite with me.

https://mrignayani.com/product-category/maheshwari-sarees/

But how can I forget what my good friend, Mrs. Aditi Ghatak would bring for me, all the way from Kolkata, the simple yet elegant Bengal cotton saris. The fact that ‘roll press'(a process in which the cotton saris are starched and pressed neatly) in those times was quite cheap and  I always had my cotton saris crisp and smart, even to my own surprise, as good as new. I still have them, most of them intact yes, as good as new! Aditi did bring for me a few of the traditional ‘jamdani’  cotton saris which are still as rapturous as ever.

While as a South Indian am inclined to love Kancheepuram saris, I prefer to keep them for weddings back home in Kerala, when mom insists that I put on a few pieces of jewelry so that the general public does not come to the conclusion that I am all broke and desperate!

I love to watch my elegant mom,aunts, friends and nieces draped in Kanjeevaram saris more than I having to do it myself. Yet, I do have some beautiful Kanjeevaram saris which give my middle class wardrobe a rather elite touch.

More than the Kanjeevarams my heart calls out to the simple Kerala Kasavu saris with a golden border and those ‘chungdi’ saris so popular in Palakkad.

The Kota cotton saris,the beautiful bandhej and leheriyas from Rajasthan are light and breezy bringing in sunshine straight into your heart. My heart yearns for the authentic mysore silk saris, the pochampallis, the very expensive, understated and elegant silk saris from Orissa.

I can probably go on about my craze for saris but I must mention the beautiful teacher I admired a lot when I was in fifth standard at Vignana Vihara in Vijayawada who was a serious inspiration to wear saris. It’s also true that my first job at BITS TACT INFOTECH PVT LTD n Calicut that required me to wear saris every day to work while riding the Kinetic Honda, made me incredibly confident about my sari draping and sari carrying skills.

My favorite teacher of all times, Dakshayani mam with her incredible knowledge of Malayalam literature and her ever friendly and loving way of dealing with us, her students was always rather simple in her dress, the sari casually draped, her ‘lakshmi vala’ the bangle with different forms of goddess lakshmi being her only style statement and her watch sometimes not working, conveyed to my young impressionable mind the importance of modesty and simplicity in dressing.

Every time I go to Calicut, I open my mom’s almirah and stand there secretly admiring her collection of saris, thinking of ways to make it even more drool worthy and come back having spent on saris for her and and for me, of course. And amma’s saris are for me to pick and choose any day. The other day amma insisted that we both buy chikankari saris of different shades and we both thought that it was a great idea.

I never feel sorry for having donned a sari as I am more than happy to flaunt it. To all those sari loving ladies out there, much love!

Sariyistically yours

adhyapika 🙂