A Shade of Blue

College photos being unearthed and dried in the WhatsApp group. It's difficult not to get sucked into the mayhem of memories. One of the photos is of our graduation ceremony. All girls are wearing silk sarees, as was the rule, and I'm wearing Aayi's blue saree with the red border. It was a gift from her brother on the occasion of his son's Munji more than a decade earlier. And it was the only good saree Aayi had those days. So the red border had faded in places and it was hard to conceal. For some time inside the hostel I felt I was the poorest around. But the feeling wasn't novel so it didn't bother me for long. The only thing that mattered that day was that Mr. MF, our HoD, who had been a terror all along, was putting the graduation ring on my finger. I have the photo of a smiling MF. 

Anyway, less than a year later, I went all by myself to Mangalore and bought two sarees for my mother with my own money. One of them a silk saree, copper coloured. My mother wore it with a lot of fanfare for some years, before it became a habit for anybody and everybody to give her a silk saree as gift.