It was like
witnessing a sacred ritual.
After pleating the saree pallu folds, Mum pinned
them and laid them out on the bed. Then she carefully tucked the other end of
the saree into her petticoat. The front pleats were done with measured
accuracy, pinned, and slipped into the petticoat, just a little to the right of
the navel. Lastly she took the pallu end of the saree, triumphantly
tossed it over her shoulder, and pinned it there. Then turning to the mirror,
she preened while straightening and smoothing away any awkward folds.
Mum has a
good taste for dressing up and wears the most elegant sarees in the most
graceful way.
I watched
and learned to drape sarees just by watching her. Once every year, she
laboriously starched the cotton sarees and aired the precious silks. Every
summer the cotton sarees were freshly starched with the water left over from
boiled rice. Every spring the silks were put out in the sun to release the
musty smells and moisture. On those days our tiny backyard looked quite festive
as yards and yards of colourful sarees hung like buntings on the clothes lines.
Some older cousins whispered that there were threads of real gold and silver
woven into some of these sarees! Some sarees were two-toned and displayed different
colours in the sun and the shade. We loved to play hide and seek
around them and if our faces brushed against the sarees, it felt like a gentle
caress from mum herself.
As a little
girl, I liked to hide in the folds of her saree. I would enclose myself in a
little tent I made from her pallu to avoid glances and enquiries from
strangers when they visited us. Every weekend mum took me with her to the open
market. Once there, she would move briskly from stall to stall buying and
bargaining. It was difficult for me to walk quickly, so I used to trail along
holding the long suspended end or the pallu of her sari. For comfort. It
was my lifeline. The familiar vendors and other onlookers always smiled knowingly
when they saw us.
One day
while mum bargained for fruits, a monkey in the centre of the market caught my
eye. It was a curious fellow and imitated every action of its keeper. It even
checked the keeper’s daughter’s hair for lice and slapped her if she turned her
head. That amused me and I watched with total absorption. A while later, the
keeper’s family said goodbye. So did the monkey by waving its paws. They
wrapped up their belongings and left.
I clung to the saree pallu as usual
and trailed along. A while later I realised that I had not heard my mum’s voice
for a long time. I looked up and saw that at the other end of the saree pallu
was a strange plump lady, so unlike my mum. I opened my mouth to howl but
no sounds came, so I sobbed bitterly instead. It seemed like my lifeline was
cut off. How could I have lost my mum? Has anybody turned her into this
strange-looking lady? Or worse – has she been kidnapped? I was inconsolable.
The strange lady looked at me clinging to her pallu and asked tenderly,
“Are you looking for your mum, little girl?”
I looked so grief-stricken that
she must have guessed so.
Then her questions poured out.
“What is your name?
What is your mum’s name? Where do you stay?”
I did not answer a single question
and just looked at all the questioning faces through my cascading tears.
People
asked around, “Has anybody lost a little girl?”
After what seemed like a
century, I saw my mum’s gentle face in the crowd. My voice then broke and I
cried loudly and bitterly. She claimed me as her daughter, smiled and thanked
the lady and pacified the other people. Then she bent down, pulled me close,
kissed me several times, wiped away my tears, offered me a peeled banana, and
lovingly explained that I must have let go of her saree pallu at some point and then grabbed on to the other
lady’s pallu.
Mum laughed away the incident and said that such things
happen in life and taught me to believe in the goodness of strangers.
Now I have
a little girl of my own who watches me whenever I drape a saree.
