The Dancing Saree

The saree is a beautiful feeling wrapped up as a garment on our being.

It completes me in a way that art does. Art is not just as a form of expression, but an experience of completeness. As one long stretch of six yards, the saree is one whole being.

Not cut into bits and parts, we wear it whole as a dance costume. Instead of a stitched costume, we tie it beautifully around the dancing body. The blossoming drape of the saree, flows with the curves in odissi and it's joyous rhythm. In the manner  of tying the saree costume between the legs, it reveals the shape of the negative space between the legs, as beautiful as the entire form of the dancing pose.

Before one knows it, the saree seeps into one's life. The heart wants to wear the saree as an inseparable part of one's daily life, feeling the intense love and comfort the body feels for it. It is as if the body fell in love with the saree, and the heart rejoices in its feeling of oneness when together.

Saree and Me

Silly saree days,
they wrap me up,
in giddying fabric,
and giggly borders.

Tracing my contours,
the borders travel,
across the length and breadth of me,
a journey into the center of my earth.

A frangipani center,
white and yellow inside,
ripe in abundance,
melting with its fragrance.

My saree is upto tricks,
it chats with my bindi,
together with the bangles,
I know not what they plan.

As colours melt into sound,
as a tinkle becomes a line,
patterns swirl around,
to drown the depths of me.

Is it the festive season,
or the festive heart,
or just the tuberose's fragrance,
that wraps me up in silly saree days...