The Orange Saree

Those were my college days.
I used to wear cotton sarees.
We sisters used to wash, starch lightly, dry and iron them.
One of the sarees I used to like was a mix of cotton and polyester. It was orange and had beautiful yellow-white (sunflower) floral designs all over. It din't need starching or ironing. I found it so convenient to just wash and wear it.

Light browns, beige, light pinks, light orange, rust color are the shades that suit most Asian skin colors, this orange saree suited my skin color so well that many would compliment me whenever I wore this saree to college.

For four years I used it extensively as it was my favourite saree.
At home they would joke about my liking this saree and say they wanted to see me wear different colors too.
My mother heard these comments and decided to act on it.

Here in India, we usually collect unwanted clothes and barter them for steel untensils or plastic buckets, mugs, tubs, etc. (which the street vendors carried on their bicycles) with the quantity of clothes we have. These vendors came door to door to collect old clothes and old newspaper and trade their wares. These vendors in turn wash, iron the old ones and sell it for a good price as second hand clothes elsewhere. With the money got back they would re-invest in purchase of wholesale stainless steel and plastic household articles. This cycle goes on and on.

My mother would collect everyone's old clothes in a bundle and whenever the vendor came she would barter for such things.
Mother dear threw in my favourite orange saree (without my knowledge)with the other lot of old discards and bartered them for a plastic bucket and mug. I din't know about it for a very long time. I kept searching for my orange saree and she kept mum for a very long time. One day I told I really missed my saree and din't know whatever happened to it. My mom told me she had bartered it away since I had outworn it, for the new orange bucket and mug. I fought, pouted, refused food, etc yet knew it would never come back and even if it did come back, I would not wear it as it would have been tried by someone else. I learnt to console myself.

It was one among many lessons I learnt in detachment!
There were many more to follow through the years and my learning still continues with my mom living with me. With time we learn to accept such things magnanimously and get mature enough not to fight or pout when such things continue to happen. After all my mom and I share a deep bonding which an orange saree cannot and should not be the cause for fissures.

A few years back the same happened to my coca cola brown chiffon saree which I just loved for its beautiful small prints in pink/white/green. It was a gift from my sister in Canada and I was so sentimental about it. It was the wash and wear type of saree, never faded and ever bright with every wash. That also went to the vendor in Chennai while the orange one went to a Hyderabad vendor.

But I have outgrown the anger, deprivation and frustration now. Indeed I have matured and learnt how to move on without some things which are discarded without my permission or knowledge!!

Does God need our permission to discard this body of ours, when our time comes?! So what are mere clothes and things which we use and get so attached to? What if they were stolen by some unknown person or lost in transit or my mother? Its lost and it should not matter who was responsible for that. I move on with life.

Mahalakshmi.