6 yards long
I drape around her gracefully.
or perhaps, she adds grace to me.
A wedding gift from her mother
when she was 15,
for those simpler days
when she need not be decked to the nines for other weddings and temple events
I was envious at first.
She didn't.touch me for almost a year.
My pink and grey cotton
paled next to her wedding silks
in peacock blue and crimson red,
with their 6 inch thick zari, woven gold
but in the end I was the one
who followed her around home
picking up the scent of turmeric and spices
I was shocked at first
when they tied me to that cold ring on the ceiling.
Then I felt her lay a one foot long chubby squirming little thing, with a tightly clenched fist and a shrill cry.
I was the thotil for her baby girl!
Ah the things thst little one did in me
Nvertheless she washed me with such love and care,
I was up again on that ring,
ready to cradle the next.and the next. and the next.
Nine in all.
He wasn't very nice to her,
kicked her like a dog once.
Something about money.
He overturned a pot of sambar on her head too.
I was cradling number 9 at that time.
The next day she bundled me into a suitcase
I never saw that house again.
I lay in her cupboard for years after that,
only smelling mothballs.
I was sure I would be forgotten. or worse,.torn to pieces like the blue and white one to wipe the table or cut into squares like the old dhoties, for the idly chutti.
When she took me out, it was a gift me to her eldest.
That first squirmy baby now had one of her own.
I was the thotil saree for her too.
My pink and grey had faded somewhat, but I was soft,
softer than any other she had, and so I went,
from mother to daughter,
to cradling her granddaughter.
Then i was back in the cupboard. The daughter gave me back, she was moving home.
I don't know how many years went by. I slept, awaking only to see new sarees come in and others get thrown out. I sat quietly at the bottom of the pile.
Today I heard some terrible wails. then someone came over and took all of us out.
He was crying a lot, think it was number nine..
Curly haired tot then, he now was had a shiny bald spot.
but the same kind eyes, just so red.
He laid me out on the bed together with the others
She came and picked me straight away. Her first born.
Where was she though?
As the eldest folded me into her suitcase in the hall, I spied her in a photograph, garlanded.
This is for my grand daughter she said, as she pushed me in. Pink is her favourite colour.
I'm taken. away from my beloved ..
I don't want to go. but I do.
Later, I lie on a bed. I hear voices. and I feel the touch of the most gentle fingers.
she is hugging me like I've never been hugged before. and she is bathing me with her tears.
I miss you paati aaya, I miss you so much.
and I realise, I am home. passed through the hands of four generations of first daughters, I am home.
ah, how I loved it when she cooked.
no one could make a better fish fry than her!
I became
she is
of all the sarees in the cupboard
she chose me .
her granddaughter wants to wear me
I can't compete next to the bejewlled fancies that preen about
better suited for all functions apparently
but she chooses me
thotil selai
sadangu selai
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