The season's mid-showers accompanied with the sound of brushed drums. I hear the pitter-patter of raindrops on the leaves. All around me, its unlighted yet the midnight's silence brightens up my spirit. Sitting in my balcony, I enjoy the soft drizzles of rain brushing against my hair and caressing my face. A thought crosses my mind … peaceful and quiet, perfect time for my creative mind to get working …

My eyes intently searched for something, THAT someone, I could rest on and say “this is it”. This is “THE” thing that would make alive my imagination. But on a starless and a moonless night?

Here I am, trying my best to contain all of the earthly scents of the rains, when I stood interrupted by a silhouette of someone standing outside an open kitchen window at her home just not far away from me. An extremely busy woman and a mother of two little souls, I reminded myself. But what made me look up intensively was a tiny baby asleep in the swaddling strap with the baby carrier sling wrapped against her chest. The poised young lady was enjoying what she was doing …. Uninterrupted flow of thoughts, making its way smoothly on the canvas.

The days gone and the night has come. The mundane chores has ceased for a while – a time when she could just be herself with no one around. But how would the baby be without the mother? She wouldn’t want to do that either and even though there’s an extra weight she carries … that wouldn’t stop her from doing what she’s passionate about. And here she is pretty comfortable in her nine yards “madisar pudavai”, neatly covering the midriff. But who would even notice even if she bares it, it’s a sleeping world around. But I guess, it's a way she's internalized - the art of draping it … “traditions and habit you see ”, I told myself.

The nine yards???

The thought kept dancing in my head and in a jiffy I almost allowed my mind to wander into a different world, though quite familiar to me.

I see my mom (we also address her as Ma / Bou in Oriya) wrapped up in a traditional handwoven “ikkat” saree busy in the kitchen chopping vegetables, carelessly sitting on the wooden “peedha” ( wooden flat stool used to sit and chop vegetables or also for having meals, prevalent till now in Orissa) for the preparation of “ghanta tarkari” and very comfortable with the paniki (a tool with a cutting edge with a wooden footrest). Mind you, she isn't too used to knives/ food processors like we do now and panikis were super-fast, I bet ya. It’s still used in our modern kitchen setup, back at home and frankly speaking, the use of it is not everyone’s cup of tea.

She works from early morning till eternity and one thing I was asking myself today was “Is that what she signed for”? But when did I even have the time to ask her that? Ahh, I was a kid then. Yeah but what about those years when I grew up and could have inquired of?

There was Silence and I stood staring into an empty space …….

As kids, we often ran to her, many a times in the day and the first thing that we caught hold was the “kaanni” (the one end which is flung over the left shoulder and hangs really short till the hip level) Hahaha I remember chewing it many times while asking her “What’s for lunch, ma?”. Also seen my brother (or cousin bros to my aunts) cuddling up to mom after the evening playtime and wiping away his stinky sweat on her saadhi. She never objected, instead have seen her casually lifting the kaanni / pallu of her saree and wiping the sweat around their forehead.

Why talk of then, it's even now that I see my little one often running to my mum and wiping off his hands on my mum's kaanni.

We all have done that isn't it?

The nine yards … it’s very close to my heart, like many of us who have seen our mums adorning it since we have opened our eyes. Days, months years, years after years our mums have used it very happily without a grumble or complain.

It was seen in every season, night and day wrapped up on our dear ones …. Mama/Bou/Ma, santa maa, jeje maa, momaa, nani, pisima, mayeen, badamaa and there’s an endless list to it (mums, grand mums, aunts)

The Nine yards …. It's just not a really long strip of fabric that I am talking about, it’s about some intense and impassioned emotions attached to it. There have been a part of my memories that just doesn’t seem to leave me.

Im sure, its a part of you too … an emotional undetached part of our lives.

I wouldn’t dare to forget my santa maa. The picture is still crystal clear in my mind. I’ve seen her completing the daily tasks and sitting next to that huge wooden window of her room with that antique betel box containing betel leaves, finely cut areca nuts with her “guakathi” (the brass beetel nut cutter), slaked lime (that white paste) and the brown powder paste (kaatha) and many more stuff, I fear don’t remember  The betel leaf along with all the above ingredients in neatly rolled into a chewable form and goes into the mouth. Few more (3-4) is kept aside in a tightly tied knot to one end of her kaani (end part of the saree or pallu) for later use. Mind you, there’s already a bunch of keys hanging in out there  multitasker saree, you see ….

A little while, when we grew up to teenagers … A typical scene I’m trying to flip through the virtual book in my mind, scanning through the pictures and the details , I end up arriving in my ayeeghara (Mums mom home) during summer vacations when we all cousins used to have a gala time together. Remember folks?

It’s really early … even before the dawn peepeth through, nani and aataa (widowed grandmother and her missionary unmarried sis-in–law) are awake and seated on those ancient wooden chairs singing those old numbers from our devotional hymn book. Their heads covered with the “white santipuri cotton saree with zari borders” and the whole atmosphere is filled with sincere worship and praise to God. The saintly figures wrapped in white portrayed so much of humility purity sincerity discipline strength and surrender. We owe so much to them all so much. For the values they have inculcated to the next gen is praiseworthy.

And look who stands in front of hundreds in the congregation … with much grace and elegance she is wrapped in a “silk offwhite sambalpuri baandha saree” with her head covered and the loose end of her pallu tucked into the waistband precisely …

An ordained servant of God who spoke words of wisdom and touched many lives she came across. I can very boldly say that her fame can be measured by the number of hearts who revere her memory till date, by the number of lips who have mentioned and still mention of her with honour. Our very dear Aataa …. She travelled several foreign countries to share the gospel, yet never parted with her nine yards. Respect!!!

Walk with me into my school @St. Joseph’s Girls’ High School.

Guys remember, during lunch break we often saw mothers coming with hot packs for those few lucky ones … Pretty mothers at their elegant best donning varieties of beautiful traditional ethnic sarees, with a big red dot/bindi/bottu on the forehead and the wrist part of their hands wearing the beautiful white “sankha” made of conch-shell and the “pola” bangles made of red corals. It was a treat for the eyes  Sarees were adorned to just look beautiful and nothing else. It made these pretty mothers look so complete …. There is something about these sarees isn't it?

The love for sarees and different varieties of sarees among my folks, I would say …. is craziness personified. You name a saree and it's in their wardrobe. Every occasion needs a saree. A thumb rule is that a saree cannot be repeated if there are multiple weddings in a stretch … what if someone just finds out ROFL … They are this crazy!!!! Believe me.

Sambalpuri, tussar, Bomkai, ikkat, khandua, pasapali , matha to start with and the list is endless. These are must have’s and you find them equally enthusiastic about the sarees of other states too.

With great pride I can say that these women who are so fanatical about the nine yards have one thing in common … You hear them echoing these words in their silence “It’s not that I look beautiful in a sari, but the saree makes me look beautiful”. 

What so special about these long nine yards?

These folks never tried any other attire their whole life, neither were seen to be interested in doing that … But Why? There was no answer to my whys?

Frankly speaking, I love my mum making baby nappies and new born clothes in her old soft cotton sarees that she’s preserved since years now. I remember when my kids were born, she carried suitcase full of clothes for the nursing and it was all hand made with love and just wonderful. Absolutely no words to describe the emotions which ran then. I wish I had a picture to share. The love wrapped in these old sari clothes she made for her grandchildren is immeasurable, unfathomable, and unimaginable.

During college examinations days:

Ma, I called aloud past midnight, Where art thou?

I needed her, to rest my head against her chest, just now.

Though silently in bed, she’s wide awake, comes in haste and stands next to me with a smile,

Tells me baby, it's time you sleep for a while.

I hug her tight and choose not to leave her for some time,

Hold her saree and whisper the fears that crawl in my mind, this night time.

I refresh myself with the fruity scent of crushed fruit/flower wafting from all around her,

“It’s surely the flower that would have showered on her while tending to her plants in the kitchen garden”, I did infer.

Adulthood:

Know ye not, I have soaked gallons of your tears throughout your life, the nine yards speaks,

But be of good cheer; see you all have come out much stronger and wiser, piled up in heaps.

I wish I’ll forever cling to you throughout your life, my dear

Don’t mistake me to be some boring old and out-of-fashion piece of rug, I'd be helpless to interfere.

I conclude:

The peacefulness you feel when you sleep on your mother’s lap holding her pallu ….

The tears she wipes away from your face in helpless times, with her kanni ….

The warmth of her embrace and the odour of the sadhi ….

The elegance of that piece of fabric that beautifies your spirit …

The feeling of being myself …

The feeling of a bond - an eternal bond …

The feeling of being a complete woman.

The nine yards

.    .    .