G is for Great ... n ...Garment

 

All this month I am writing about the gorgeousness of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the elegant, complex and utterly fascinating world of fibre and yarn, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural heritage and political identity.

G is for Ganga Jamuna

Ganga Jamuna is not a type of saree per se, it is a classic border design which features two disparate, often high contrast colours for the top and bottom borders.  'Ganga Jamuna'  refers to the two great rivers of course, the Ganges and its largest tributary the Yamuna - the lifelines of India. These two rivers rise in the North and flow through a total of 11 Indian states/provinces then drain into the Bay of Bengal in the East through Bangladesh (a part of India till 1947). 

Classic Ganga Jamuna borders
in a red n green combo. 

Incidentally 'Ganga Jamuna' in the Indian context is a metaphor for the syncretism that exists in the blend of two separate Hindu-Muslim subcultures,  as in 'Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb' (culture). Separate, contrasting, equidistant throughout but complementary to each other and woven together. 

It is also interesting to note that the body of the saree is referred to as 'jomi' and the borders as 'paaR' in Bengali, which are the exact same words for land/field/earth and riverbank respectively. In other words, the saree here becomes a symbol of the river and its banks, of India itself. Poetic but also eminently true, no? 

There's also a colour called 'Ganga-jal' meaning 'Ganga waters', usually used on the body or 'jomi' of the saree  - a shade of sandy beige. Everywhere, geography shapes our roti-kapda-makaan (bread-garment-building) and also language. We end up wearing our culture, aware of it or not.

Okay, back to borders.  Initially the saree must have been a simple piece of plain fabric without any differentiated borders. However, evidence from the Mauryan period (321-185 BCE) indicated that sarees had developed ornate borders by then, which was further bolstered by all round advances in technological and cultural spheres in the Gupta Empire (320-550 CE), the classical Golden Age of Ancient India. In short, saree borders go back at least two millennia. 

And no wonder, because it makes eminent sense to have borders on a saree. The bottom edge is in constant contact with the feet/shoes/ground, while the top part is tucked or knotted around the waist, therefore both require extra strength fabric. Originally, the borders would have been purely functional, i.e. added for reasons of durability, later becaming a design element. By the 10th century, distinct regional textile traditions in both weaving and draping had been established. Read more here and here.

During medieval times, especially in the Mughal era, new techniques of embroidery and gold/silver thread work was introduced. The Mughals were great patrons of art and culture and promoted many new design innovations in textiles. Gold and silver were woven into borders, newer floral motifs were introduced through cultural exchange between Persia and India. Handloom weaves  became the epitome of luxury. 

It is not quite clear where or when the Ganga Jumana border originated. The term 'Ganga Jamuni' itself originated in Awadh in the 18th/19th century - to refer to the syncretic culture that developed under the Awadhi/Mughal rulers in the area bounded by the two sacred rivers - known as Doab, where major textile hubs like Varanasi (Benarasi weaving) and Lucknow (Chikankari shadow work embroidery) are located. 

It seems logical that the Ganga Jamuna border design could have originated somewhere within this setting also. Or perhaps the design element existed many centuries prior, but the name was adopted after the Awadhi term was coined? 

What is intriguing  is that the Ganga Jamuna border is now popularly woven in traditional regional handloom centres where neither the Ganga nor the Jamuna flow, such as Vidarbha in the West. And in places never part of the Mughal empire, where other major rivers also held to be sacred, like Kaveri and Thamirabarani, exist. Such as Kanchipuram, famous for its silk sarees since the 7th century. How has this come about?

All one can say that the Ganga Jamuna border is a timeless classic. 

~~~

Did you know that? - In Bengal, because the handloom cotton borders were woven to be so much more durable than the body they outlasted the saree and were kept and reused to edge seating mats called madur and asana. Also used as general purpose rope and ribbon. The threads pulled from the deconstructed border were used by ladies to embroider various household articles like pillow covers. 

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025 

F is for ... Fashion ... n ... Forward

 

All this month I am writing about the fabulousness of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the elegant, complex and utterly fascinating world of fibre and yarn, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural and political identity.

F is for a Fresh take

Some time back, I had shared this news article on my FB wall, about Air India ditching their female air crew uniforms  - silk sarees worn with plain high neck blouses. An iconic outfit as far as brand value communications go. It generated furious debate  -  some people were sad/horrified that the flagship Indian carrier was moving away from the saree and others felt it was not a practical garment for long haul flights. Still others felt it wasn't contemporary enough, not exactly fashion forward, not the right image for modern India. 

Something I also hear often is that the use of the saree is declining among young, urban women. Many of the Millennials and early Gen Z girls/women do not know how to drape sarees and certainly don't see sarees as a convenient daily-wear or workwear option. Demand for sarees has declined in the cities, so that some manufacturers have diversified away from sarees to other forms of dress. 

Both these media reports made me wonder if the saree has lost its fanbase among Indian women? So I went to check if I could ferret out some actual data. This is what I found :

 1. A National Sample Survey Office study found that 80% of households across India purchased sarees. It was universally popular in the East and South, less so in the North East, North and North West. However, nowhere was the purchase of sarees nil.

Image credit

2.  A more recent analysis of the women's wear market by PwC indicates that Indian ethnic wear has a share of 74% by value, of which sarees have the lion's  share of 43%. This is not expected to change much in the next 5-10 years. (Read their full report here.)
   

Image credit

3. Younger women may not be wearing sarees everyday, but they are still a staple in religious festivals, wedding and occasional wear. Millennials and Gen Z are also finding newer ways to style the saree, e.g. with T-shirts, blazers, sneakers and boots, items their mothers never thought to pair with the garment. They are trying innovative ways to drape the sarees too (infinity drape, double drape, saree with trousers etc). Fusion sarees - combining the traditional saree with modern and/or Western design elements has created a whole new segment of Indo-Western wear popular with the younger generations. Instagram influencers and social media marketing is driving this experimentation. Read about how Gen Z is reinventing the saree.

4. Manufacturers have spotted the opportunities here too and have introduced pre-stitched, ready-to-wear sarees that do away with the perceived inconvenience of draping, pleating,  etc.  

5. Much of the textile sector in India has been what is called decentralised traditionally - individual weavers weaving the sarees which are then picked up by small/medium local retailers from middlemen who liaise between the weavers and sellers, a super fragmented market. But now big corporate houses, like the Tatas (Taneira), Aditya Birla Group and Reliance Industries have got into the handloom saree and ethnic women's wear. Taneira for instance has gone from 4 stores in 2018 to over 80 stores across India at present.

6. Due to the Covid lockdown, many traditional retailers moved to e-tail formats during the pandemic. Women have embraced this enthusiastically. The share of e-tail has grown from negligible to around 20% in the apparel, accessories and footwear categories in a few years E-tailers such as Amazon, Myntra, Tata Cliq and Flipkart have spearheaded this change in saree shopping habits. 

7. Meanwhile, the saree has gone global as well. Not just the diaspora is donning the garment, but Western haute couture houses have introduced saree inspired designs and Western celebrities are draping the saree.  Read more here and here. 

From all this, doesn't seem like we are quite finished with the saree yet. What do you think?

~~~

  

Did you know that many of the typical floral motifs in Indian textiles originally came from Persia and became an integral part of  the local repertoire during the Mughal era? Because luxurious textiles were patronised majorly by the Mughals and Islam shunned the depiction of figures.

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025 

E is for ...Elegant ... n ... Evidence

 

All this month I am writing about elements of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the elegant, complex and utterly fascinating world of yarn and thread, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural and political identity.

E is for Embroidery

Today I'm exploring - not a specific saree as such, but one of the ways Indian textiles are embellished, i.e. embroidery. As with the weaving, design, dyeing, printing traditions, the embroidery techniques employed have also evolved over centuries and each region/state has its own unique styles and motifs, often linked to specific communities. Not attempting to be exhaustive, that would be an endless list and probably can be a subject in itself for A-Z (Ari embroidery to Dabka, Chikankari to Mukaish, Lambani to Zardosi) so no, I'm just going to talk about a couple of major traditions only. 

Copper, bronze and bone needles have been found in various Indus Valley Civilisation sites dated roughly to 2500 BCE. While the saree and dhoti are essentially unstitched lengths of fabric, there is enough evidence that stitched garments were also in use and the IVC peoples were conversant with garment construction. 

The oldest embroidery tradition can be traced back to around 1st century CE, to the Kantha embroidery from Bengal, a folk style quilting technique based on the simple running stitch. Old sarees and dhotis, softened by many washes over years of use, were layered and stitched together to form shawls and coverlets. The borders of the sarees were used to edge the finished product for decoration and durability.  In modern times, the Kantha or running stitch is combined with other ornamental stitches and used as embellishment for sarees, and also other textiles. 

Chikankari is an exquisite embroidery style associated with Lucknow in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It has a repertoire of 35-40 decorative stitches that includes shadow-work on the reverse of the fabric. Delicate and refined, it was brought to India from Persia by the Mughals in the 16th century and flourished under the patronage of Indian royalty. Nur Jahan, the consort of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, was said to be a particular fan of the style. As with other Indian textiles, chikankari also declined under colonial rule, but was revived in the twentieth century. Its authenticity is now protected from imitations by a GI tag and it is one of the most well recognised in India and abroad. 

Apart from the above, there are a zillion others - the Kutchi embroidery from Gujarat, Kashida embroidery from Kashmir, the Shisha or mirrorwork embroidery from Rajasthan, the Lambani tribal embroidery from the Banjara or Gypsies of India, so many more impossible to list here. Watch a video on artisan creating a piece with Ari embroidery below:

And here is an embroidery map of India, gives an idea of the different regional styles.

Image credit

~~~

Did you know how ecofriendly the traditional  Indian textiles were/are? The weaving, dyeing, printing and finishing techniques all used natural materials with least damage to the environment.  

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025 

D is for...Design ... n ... Diverse

 

All this month I am writing about aspects of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the diverse, complex and utterly fascinating world of yarn and thread, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural and political identity. 

D is for Dhaniakhali

Dhaniakhali is a village around 60 km from Kolkata and is famous for its cotton handloom sarees known by the same name, a staple in Bengali women's wardrobe. I have grown up seeing both my grandmothers, aunts and mother in Dhaniakhali sarees. I have worn them myself to work as an adult. These slightly coarse, budget cotton handloom sarees are unmatched in elegance and eminently comfortable for daily work wear. 

 

The Dhaniakhali saree is typically woven on 80 and 100 count yarns, characterised by plain borders and a raised braided pattern called  'Dhaaner sheesh' (rice ear) on the weft marking the end of the aanchal. 

 

Detail of Dhaaner sheesh or rice ear braided
pattern at the aanchal end ofthe saree
 - a typical feature of Dhaniakhali.

Traditionally they were woven with unbleached plain yarns for the body and naturally dyed, darker yarns for the flat 1.5"-3'' borders, starched with a mixture of sago, popped rice and wheat slurry that gave the saree its characteristic papery but dense feel. The designs were limited to stripes, checks and geometric motifs that were possible on the simpler dobby looms. Nowadays features like jacquard style motifs and tie-n-dye designs have been introduced to attract newer consumers. However, the original stripes or duray-kata designs such as jol duray ('water stripes') or khorkey duray ('louvre stripes') have practically disappeared amidst the slew of innovations to stem the slow erosion of both demand and weaving skills. 

One of the greatest challenges faced by the handloom industry is that it is threatened by dwindling demand and therefore profitability. Sarees have become occasional wear for many younger women. The descendants of weavers are turning away from these generationally handed down skills and crafts, few want to take up the family profession of their forefathers. 

Even so, the Dhaniakhali saree is championed by no less a personality than the Chief Minister of the state of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. The saree was also granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag to help promote awareness and protect its authenticity. Read more about the Dhaniakhali saree here and here.   And watch a short clip on the process below:

~~~

Did you know that the Dhoti is the masculine counterpart of the saree and is an unstitched length of fabric used traditionally by Indian men?  It differs only in that it is less ornate, usually white/plain, has a narrower border and is around 4m in length as compared to the saree at 5-6 m. Both these garments were draped traditionally by knotting them around the waist. While the saree is still in common use among Indian women, most Indian men have switched to western garments for daily wear, and many men do not know how to drape the dhoti anymore. 

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025

C is for...Crucial ... n ... Change

 

All this month I am writing about aspects of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the colourful, complex and utterly fascinating world of yarn and thread, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural and political identity. 

C is for Company 

There are several types of sarees that one could pick for C - Chanderi for one, Chettinad for another. One could talk about the textile hubs such as Coimbatore, the 'Manchester of South India' or Calicut. But...nope, not going there.   

Instead, let's talk about a slightly different C. The company above is the Company Bahadur a k a The East India Company. C is for Colonialism, the struggle for independence and how Indian Cloth was at the Centre of an avalanche of Change.

 

In 1608, when the first trading ship of EIC docked at the west coast of India, this country was a manufacturing hub of world class textiles. India had 25% of the global exports of textiles, profits from which made the Indian Emperor Jehangir the wealthiest monarch in the world. Britain at the time had about 2-3% of the textiles market worldwide. 

The Company introduced calico and chintz to Britain, initially as a sideline from its main trade in spices. However, by the late 1600s, textile goods had overtaken them in importance. Indian textiles proved to be wildly popular in Britain threatening the domestic weavers and leading to the first of the Calico Acts in 1700 - a ban on the import of finished cotton fabrics. 

...also for Clive...n... the Charkha

Image credit

Robert Clive established Company rule in India in 1757 by winning the Battle of Plassey, defeating Nawab Siraj-ud-daula of Bengal. And meanwhile, on the other side in Britain, the Industrial Revolution took shape and the first British textile mills came to be established in the 1770s. With the invention of the 'spinning Jenny,' the power loom etc, the growth of cloth production was scaled up manifold from a cottage industry to commercial levels. 

Beyond the Atlantic, the American Revolutionary War meant that the source of raw cotton dried up. The British needed both raw materials to keep the mills fed and a large overseas market to sell the finished textile goods.  So naturally, they continued to block the import of finished textiles and instead scooped up raw cotton bales from India to process and flooded the Indian market with cheaper mill made fabrics. 

Throughout colonial rule, British policies kept the local Indian industries shackled. Mill made British cloth was taxed at absurdly low rates whereas indigenous cloth was exorbitantly taxed. Skilled Indian weavers, in the trade for generations, lost their livelihood and were pushed into abject poverty. The entire Indian textile industry was crippled. And so India's millennia long domination of the global textiles market, from the days of Ancient Rome and Egypt, practically vanished in the short space of a century and a half. 

Consequently, the Indian political aspirations for independence - the Swadeshi (swa - self, desh -country; native-made), Swaraj (raj - rule) and Quit India movements, crystallised around the boycott of foreign goods, including mill made British textiles. 

The early 1920s saw huge political rallies in Bombay and Calcutta where symbolical bonfires of foreign textiles were lit as part of civil disobedience protests. The spinning and wearing of 'Khadi'  a coarse, handspun, handwoven Indian fabric, as well as spinning and weaving hubs set up throughout rural India,  characterised the Swadeshi movement and the drive towards economic self sufficiency. The spinning wheel or charkha was the symbol of Swaraj or self-rule, spinning/weaving/wearing Khadi an act of nonviolent rebellion.  In other words, Indian handspun handloom cloth became the face of the Indian freedom struggle. Coarse handspun was weaponised to a tool of political resistance.

Image credit. This was adopted as the national flag in 1933
 and incorporated the spinning wheel. It was replaced by the
 Ashoka Chakra in July 1947 and hoisted on Independence
Day on 15th August of the same year.

When the long march to freedom ended in August 1947, the first Prime Minister of an independent India hoisted the Indian flag in Delhi. It was made of Khadi, the Indian handspun, handloom cotton cloth, its historical weight far exceeding its mere grammage.

Indian flag 1947-present. Till 2021, the
flag was mandatorily made of Khadi,
handspun, handwoven cotton or silk. 

~~~

Did you know about the crass protectionism practised by the Western colonial governments? Something to consider, isn't it? - when contemporary Western nations complain about Indian markets being restrictive and Indian tariffs preventing foreign goods being sold freely in India! 

Do you think WTO should take into account the wrongs of colonialism and the destruction of thriving industries due to shamelessly unfair tax/tariff regimens of the past centuries? Should sectors like the handloom industry in India be compensated for the havoc that colonial governments wreaked and if so, how? 

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025

B is for...Beeswax ...n ... Brush

 

All this month I am writing about aspects of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the colourful, complex and utterly fascinating world of yarn and thread, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural and political identity. 

B is for Batik

Batik (pr. baah-teek) is a wax resist dyeing technique that goes back nearly 2000 years, as evidence of such textiles have been found in various parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, Far East and South Asia.   

However, the modern day revival of Batik started in the early twentieth century with the Dutch colonists popularising Javanese Batik in various parts of the world. They were adapted in Africa as wax prints and also  diffused through Europe and America. Indian Batik too saw a revival centred around several locations - Gujarat,  Andhra and Bengal, each region making it their own and adding their unique cultural motifs. 

Batik artist applying wax resist pattern to fabric
with pen in a studio in Bali, Indonesia.

All over Santiniketani Batik on cotton saree with typical
floral motifs of Bengal.

The process involves applying a wax pattern - usually a mixture of beeswax and paraffin wax to the surface of the textile and then dyeing it in multiple stages. The wax resist may be applied by blocks, brushes, pens and/or brooms and prevents the dye from being absorbed into the fabric. When the wax is removed after dyeing the resist leaves a negative motif which can then be coloured in further stages or left as is.

Watch this video below to see Batik patterns being created. 

Bengal, my home state, has a special role in Indian Batik, where the traditions were revived and new techniques created in Santiniketan, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore visited Java in 1927 and was deeply impressed by the Javanese Batik being used in their stage productions, dance dramas and home decor. He brought back several pieces of Javanese Batik and introduced them in the fine arts institute known as Kala Bhavan, at his university. In time, it evolved into a cottage industry there with its own innovations of techniques and designs, such as Batik on leather goods. Batik is also used widely for home decor items such as cushion covers, bedspreads and wall art. 

Plain body saree with Batik motifs worked on the
border and the aanchal on Baharampuri silk.

B is also for Baluchari, another sumptuous Bengali weave, characterised by its mythological/figure motifs worked seamlessly at the corners of the aanchal.  

~~~

Did you know that Batik derives from the amalgamation of two Javanese words - amba, meaning 'to write' and titik which means 'dots'?

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025

A is for April...n...A-Z

 

Welcome to the  Blogging from A-Z Challenge 2025, this is my 12th year participating...All this month I am attempting to write about aspects of Indian textiles, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Indian textiles have a history that is amazingly rich and long and wide and I absolutely adore them. 

Come with me into the colourful, complex and utterly fascinating world of yarn and thread, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural identity and a political symbol. 

A is for Ajrakh

The origins of Ajrakh textiles go back at least five millennia to the Harappa/Indus Valley Civilisation. A bust of a 'Priest-King' excavated in Mohenjo-Daro shows a garment draped over his shoulder, with a trefoil pattern and remnants of a red dye, resembling Ajrakh. 

Source

Ajrakh is produced in India in the Kutch region of Gujarat in the extreme Western edges of the country. It is also produced by the Sindhi community of Pakistan. Both communities make these hand block printed textiles in the same age old processes and natural dyes used for thousands of years. Ajrakh fabrics are characterised by their vibrant colours and typically geometric and/or floral motifs. 

It is a 16 step process from the blank fabric to finished Ajrakh. Watch this video to see how lovingly and laboriously the fabric is made:

So, that's Ajrakh. A is also for Aanchal, which is the end of a saree draped over the shoulder and left free. It is usually decorated in ornate patterns, markedly different from the body of the saree.

The Anchal - is mostly different
from  the body of the saree
to make it stand out

~~~

Did you know that the handloom textile sector employs over 3 million people in India? It has been the largest employment sector in the rural areas after agriculture traditionally, though in recent years the children of weaving families have tended to migrate away from the family occupations. Think of the whole process - the cultivation of  fibres, the spinning, the weaving of fabrics, the post production treatments, the ancillaries - the dyes, the blocks, the shuttles, the packaging etc - it is a vast, intricate and fascinating ecosystem.

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025

The Prompt Was Friendship

 

With friends. Far away and long ago. 

Can't claim too many friends - 

I've moved around too much,

it's hard to say goodbye,

harder to stay in touch.

Social media platforms,

letters and video calls

can't bridge the whole distance,

they can't plug all the holes.

And therefore by and by

the connections taper off -

two worlds too disparate

and keeping up too tough.

I can count them on one hand.

I'm thankful for the few

who've remained through thick and thin

and that it includes you.

Some poetry group that I belong to on FB put out this prompt on friendship and I wrote this but then couldn't locate the original post where I was supposed to submit - story of my life! - so I thought I'll post it here instead. 

Nope, I've haven't been abducted or quit blogging, just quietly prepping for the A-Z which I thought I'll join in this year with some sort of theme and coherent posts after the haphazard, cobbled-together-at-the-last-minute type posts for years now. So yeah, I'll be there.

I hope March has treated you well. A very happy Eid in advance to my friends celebrating. I'll be back on the 1st. See you soon. 

This Too Is Love

 

It's been quite sometime that you've gone away - 

there's a creeper growing in one of the cracks

on the ledge - rather a pungent bouquet.

It's sinking in that you're not coming back.

Your coffee mugs lie dusty with disuse.

Your bedroom slippers are neat on the rack.

Absence feels like a gently spreading bruise - 

a purple tide, because you're not coming back.

Vases and glasses wear chips on their rims,

pages crumble along silverfish tracks,

even the light in these rooms is muted dim.

A strange cast that knows you're not coming back.

I still open windows. Dust off the years.

Keep keys safe. Just in case. Though you aren't here. 

~~*~~

February has just zoomed past me. There's been a family wedding - so a mega reunion of the clan, gathering for a few days from all corners of not just India but the world. That's always super pleasant, to catch up with the gang. Cousins remain my firstest, funnest and bestest Valentines ever. 

For every high there will be an immediate and corresponding low - the offspring picked up some ghastly bug, therefore an ER visit had to be made, stressful at the time but all okay now. This too is a milestone, first time admission in the hospital. Anyway, all's well that ends well.  

As you can imagine, not very conducive to poetry-ing. However, there's no control on thinking. The thoughts come unbidden, without any respect for timing or place or state of mind - whether the aforesaid mind is panicking in the ER or teasing out the meanings behind the rituals at a wedding ceremony. Always a chance to get fresh angles to love throughout the year. Weddings can celebrate it publicly and very visibly, with solemnly taken vows, effusive displays of affection and joy, heaps of tinsel and glitz. Love can equally mean a whole host of quieter, everyday things. Long loves are mostly made up of ordinary stuff - giving a cup of coffee, refuelling the car, adjusting the thermostat because you notice the sheen of perspiration on a loved one's forehead. Just small acts of consideration and courtesy, offered freely without having to be asked.

At the wedding, a cousin of mine saw my father in my son. We talked about our loved ones who weren't present, remembering past weddings they had attended. "How diminished we are now!" my cousin said. But are we really? They weren't there physically but they permeate our life. We see them everywhere, in our children and in their values handed down. The memories are fresh, almost tangible. And we carry our departed loved ones with us into every family reunion  and into everyday dinner conversations. We tell and retell the stories they told us, hear their voices in our own and laugh again at all the same places. We keep the keys safe. Is this  not love too? 

All Season

 

A sunset may look like a sunrise,

a flat bread may look like a cake,

not all things appear as themselves -

to assume that is a mistake.

Mild winters often fool the public

into thinking it's already spring.

Remember that some leaves will wither

as the rest of the tree gets blooming.

A backyard can contain deep snowdrifts

as well as robins overhead -

call it a miracle or mundane,

birds flying in flocks of hundreds.

What's seen though is often not equal

to what you might manage to get.

Some stranger slams in from outside

and skews the whole game and the set.

Compassion's never a guarantee

that the very same will be lobbed back -

you can send all the cakes and roses

but karma's a tough puzzle to crack.

No particular time for despair -

it's an all-year, all-season thing.

Just like love, hope and happiness.

None of them is confined to spring. 

The video above was sent by my school buddy Riki Roy who lives in Alberta, Canada, thank you Riki!  

But why on earth should images of snow and ice and -30 deg C temperatures result in a poem on spring? Because it is Vasant Panchami here in India, which is a kind of advent festival observed for the start of spring.  Vasant is the word for spring in several Indian languages, it is called Rituraj Vasant around these parts - the King of Seasons, the season of renewal and rejuvenation, of planting and growth. Cusp season, love season too, as it is the wedding season in India. 

Just as a matter of info, the minimum temperature in Srinagar today, the  northernmost provincial capital  in India, is 1 deg C. And where I am much further south east, the min temps are in the 20s. 

While we prepare for spring in India, my friends and family south of the equator are readying for winter. Indo-Fijians mark Vasant Panchami the same as Indians, though their seasons are completely flipped over there, they are observing a 'spring' festival during their own autumn, isn't that piquant? Yet they have completely adapted to the local seasonal rhythms for all practical purposes, they have to. The contrasts across the planet - extreme, awe-inspiring and aren't they utterly fascinating!

Wishing you a fascinating time full of inspiring contrasts. Happy February!

Constituent Parts

 

Within me you'll find my parents

and in me you'll find my sons,

you'll find them all everywhere in me

but they're not the only ones.

There are folks too that you'd never know -

friends, and strangers I've met just once.

For we aren't only our forefathers.

And we're not just our descendants.

The houses that I've ever lived in

continue to live in me.

The beaches I've picked seashells from

shop fronts I've looked at longingly.

The woods I've walked, the glory of stars,

the shadow of bird and tree.

For we're not just folks that are in us,

we are all that we hear and see.

The sum of my whole's never equalled

the sum of my constituent parts.

Each word I wrote and then scratched out,

every stumble and all false starts.

The half done poems that missed a beat,

the stories that made me fall apart.

For we come to be all that we've loved,

everything that's nailed to our hearts. 

 

Saffron, white and green are the colours of the Indian flag. Here today because 26th January is celebrated as Republic Day in India, to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution in 1950 and so completing the transition to a sovereign republic nation, where everyone has an equal chance at happiness and freedom. One of the many important things drilled into me by family elders, teachers and even random strangers sometimes. Nailed to the heart in short.

Happy Republic Day to all Indian citizens. May democratic values prevail across the world and in India always. 

Resolution

 

I'm resolute that I'll let joy arrive

at its own pace, I'll not ask it to rush,

nor will I turn away from the less joyous.

Everything comes at its appointed time.

I'll wait and learn. To keep the flame alive

whatever is served. Not let months crush

the night flowers slow blooming in darkness,

the rivermagic supreme and sublime.

And I'll learn to listen more acutely,

to love deeper, in more effacing ways.

Make sure my love is felt, not seen nor heard -

I'll erase the extras most resolutely

till less than joyous also feels like grace,

beyond the need to spell it out in words.  

Well, here we are  - the first post of the year. Hope you've had a brilliant time these past holidays and that those good things are going to repeat throughout the year. Wishing you lots of happies and merries in 2025. 

I don't really make resolutions, New Year or otherwise, the above is pure poetic licence overload.  Mainly because I suck at keeping them. However, the general idea is to do a bit better, to learn something new and go someplace new. To work on the patience quotient, which, after decades, is still not at an acceptable level. And the less said the better on the detachment/decluttering index, yikes. Work in progress, work in progress. Sigh. 

Do you make New Year resolutions? Tell me the secret to not fail at them.