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Nine yards of happiness

Nine yards, the sarees  hanging in my mother's cupboard have become  my new companion. A saree, isn't just yards of threads juxtaposed to form a drape, a saree is possibly an emotion which thrives !
I have grown seeing the pretty ladies of my family adorning sarees of all kinds. But, as a kid I was fascinated by my grandma's sarees, the reason being , she held on to the bright fabrics which resembled an artist's dreamscape. I would pester her to drape me one and she would mockingly pull my cheeks saying first outgrow the nine yards and then you can have all of these sarees for yourself. Ah! Wish you were around 'aama', without you here I don't even feel like looking at your closet which has been clinging to a mothballed past.
I was never a person who could master the art of draping a saree, I would make a fuss over it's unwillingness to neatly stay locked in pleats. But I have believed that the grace a saree holds can't be substituted by any other drape. Maybe, here I carry a bias but so be it, a saree after all has successfully captured an unexplainable charm over the years.
Today, as I stood fumbling over a "not so difficult to manage" kind of simple cotton saree, I realised, it required patience and a lot of love to carry any saree. It required you to embrace it's grace and it was sure to stay back. It's yards weaved stories of it's own. No more could it be limiting, it could possibly add wings if you knew to carry it with an indomitable spirit. I pleated it in neat folds and smiled at the nine yards of happiness. It no more was just an odd yard of cloth, it was who I wished to be today.


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