BENGALURU: Holding up a purple saree, Amrita Ghosh recalled her grandmother who got married at the age of 13. “She had impeccable taste in sarees. She left me two sarees – one, a handloom tissue Banarasi with real silver zari. This is from her trousseau, which makes it close to 90 years old. In my summer and pujo holidays, I would always snuggle up to her and feel her soft sarees and coax her to show me her treasured old sarees.
This particular one always fascinated me because of its subtle colour and design. I found it hard to believe that back in that era where deep coloured sarees were the norm in a wedding trousseau, a pastel beauty like this could find space,” says Ghosh, adding that when she died, she left it for her. “It was with my mother till today. I wanted to wear it but it is already beginning to fray in some places. I hope I can continue to preserve her love in the form of this saree for the next few decades,” she shared at the launch of Aishwarya Rao’s book, Pleated, over the weekend at the Registry of Sarees, Domlur.
What began as a mere dedication to her grandmother on her 80th birthday, transformed into a book on some unconventional women from South India, for Rao. A senior digital manager with an MNC, Rao gives a glimpse of some complex and inspirational characters from South India – all of whom are tied together by the ‘saree’. “It was Ammama’s 80th birthday and I wanted to gift her something. What do you gift a person who is simple and minimalistic? I had to with my words. It is in part the story of my Ammama (maternal grandmother) as narrated through the colours of the sarees she owned. From the resplendent mambazham (the colour of the ripe mango) to the breezy vadamalli (the colour of the globe amaranth), Ammama’s sarees were elegant and graceful, much like the life she led,” says Rao.
Rao and illustrator Riddhi Desai worked on the book for months, with Desai researching the Kanjeevaram designs, colours, and motifs, its symbolism. Rao is clear about her readers. “She is 30 +, lives or was raised in India. Her travels have exposed her to what she has left behind and give her a strong sense of attachment to her roots. She often catches herself in nostalgia. Her love for sarees and ‘anything Indian’ is echoed in the way she dresses and stays in touch with her roots,” she says.