August = Friday evening feels
Of flowers and fashion, paintings evoking dreams, and a house/homelands
The other day, I read a tweet which declared that August has all the feels of a late Sunday afternoon. For me, it’s more of a Friday afternoon/late evening feel, thanks to growing up in Oman during the 90s, when weekends were Thursday and Friday. I think I almost never went anywhere on Fridays because it was a ‘school night’ and I preferred to stay at home, reconciling myself to the fact that the weekend was over and getting over my anxiety for the coming week. I think that is pretty much how I used to perceive August as well, gearing up for the new academic year ahead while allowing myself to wallow in the feeling of summer and its freedom (which smelled of ice-cream, late mornings, and possibilities), a feeling that persisted fairly recently until the P-word happened. But now, instead of a slight lingering dread at what lies ahead, I will instead choose to feel a glimmer of hope for the months ahead, the gradual shortening of days, the sunlight becoming a more frequent, richer, and deeper thing, a winter a possibility even here in Bangalore. The air will smell different and everything will feel different too. At least, that is the hope I carry around with me, like a secret talisman.
This month plodded by, slowly, steadily. I impulsively decided to start this new series, Flowers As Couture on Instagram, combining my two great loves, flowers and fashion. Back in the day, when I used to consume a *lot* of fashion magazines and kept scrapbooks stuffed with outfit ideas, I even entertained dreams of being a fashion writer, interviewing fashion designers, covering fashion shows, and writing about fashion. I feel following fashion closely then taught me to immerse in and appreciate the nuance of color (l learned a lot of new colours such as ecru, fawn, and teal thanks to that time!). I would spend hours poring over garments’ cuts, textiles, and embellishments, and how they translated into operatic editorial shoots and runway shows. In my initial days of freelance writing, I did do a bit of fashion writing, especially about local fashion designers in Oman. I was particularly interested in how designers would be incorporating traditional Omani embroidery, fabrics, and silhouettes into contemporary outfits. One of my favourite stories was about how two Omani sisters decided to repurpose antique Omani silver objects into a handbag line. I also began to explore fashion and costume history, learning more about how the costumes and dress of a particular era, country, or community reflected contemporary social and cultural mores and beliefs. I particularly enjoyed doing this piece on the evolution of the French wedding dress over the centuries, thanks to an exhibition at the Omani-French museum many years ago.
After a while, though, I thought fashion writing was a frivolous field and I began to gravitate towards writing more about art and what I thought were far more serious, meaningful issues. Flowers as Couture however is bringing back those days where I enjoyed looked at beautifully made outfits along with unabashedly indulging in my love for color. It’s been a fun exercise to explore the complementing and mirroring of nature and man-made art. I am enjoying seeing the dress as an object in itself, literally a work of art, even and especially when it defies the ideas of wearability and accessibility. Hopefully, some day, I would like to do a deep dive into the world of flowers and their colours as well through the medium of this handle. But for now, I am going to leave you with this tidbit: do you know why blue is so infrequently seen in flowers? Here’s why.
There are many things I love about Bangalore but I definitely miss attending regular art exhibitions and visiting galleries here, say, unlike in Delhi or Bombay, which abound in both. The National Gallery of Modern Art is of course a wonderful structure and space in itself, the reconverted mansion, formerly known as Manikyavelu Mansion, surrounded by plenty of trees and a mirrored pool. It’s always a pleasure to behold the rotating art from their collection along with the exhibitions which take place there, my favourite so far being Luke Jerram’s Museum of Moon, which featured a large-scale installation of the moon suspended above the pool. Another favourite in Bangalore used to be the original space of Gallery SKE, which was also a ninteenth century heritage house turned into an art gallery. I last visited it two years ago when I wrote about a show there, which wove together objects and words and the space to conjuring up various iterations of home; the tangible physical layers of the house along with its history was also interwoven into the exhibition. That gallery has sadly closed down though…hopefully, there will be more such heritage spaces in Bangalore which receive a new lease of life through new reincarnations as art and cultural spaces.
But returning to the idea of home/house, I couldn’t stop looking at and thinking of this evocative oil painting by Pakistani artist, Salman Toor (image credit: Toor’s Instagram page). There is something so comforting and nourishing about this painting, so palpable that I can smell the night flower-scented air, hear the crickets and croaking frogs, feel the warm breeze and moonlight. Ever since my parents moved from Oman and I haven’t been able to return there for a visit, I have often found myself dreaming of home - the house, in particular - in various forms. That house will always be home for me, my room and bed in particular, firmly placed on my memory map. I can still see the blaze of bougainvillea blooming above the garage shade; I am standing in the doorway, watching a bird make a nest to my left, hearing kittens hidden inside the huge creeper-strewn white painted pot. The kitchen, the living room, the dining room, my room, the stairs where I once jumped two steps and tore my ligament, where we kids would sit and eat dinner off paper plates during dinner parties, they have all seen and heard so much. As the house stood in the university campus where my parents used to work at till last year, our family being the only ones who had resided in it so far, someone else must now be living there - and I wonder if they ever hear the echoes of the house’s past.
But I still have the luxury of returning to both Oman and seeing my home. The dramatic, heartbreaking, and sad events that unfolded in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover and the visuals of all those seeking to flee to start new lives will be imprinted on our minds for months, not to mention, the heart-stopping sight of those two young men on brink of new life journeys falling from the plane, briefly aloft in the sky before so tragically being returned to earth. I thought of this poem by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, which shows how the bland, robotic words of bureaucracy cannot even fathom the gorges of yearning, despair, sadness, longing, and memory that the exiled and refugees carry within them. Yes, you will start anew, you will abstract a new home from a new land - but you will always carry the ruins of your former homeland and home inside you.
May each of us carry a security and safe space inside us.
I shall end here, friends but trusting that the months ahead bring us the light we are all looking for.
Until next time,
Priyanka
What I read:
This piece about the 72 Japanese seasons which can help us forget our obsession with productivity. Absolutely loved reading about this "traditional Japanese calendar, which tracks time on the basis of when sparrows start to nest, or praying mantises hatch," particularly so during these pandemic times when the concept of time itself is becoming so shapeless.
This moving, poignant narrative of how a family losing a member during 9/11 upended their lives, a stirring note on the many faces of grief
This heartbreaking piece about those two young Afghan men who fell from the plane in their desperate attempt to escape Afghanistan and start afresh
The months appear so long that I have almost forgotten about the stupendous journey of the Indian women’s hockey team at the Tokyo Olympics few weeks ago. This must read incredible piece talks about how “the Indian women's hockey team must no longer be shadows of the men and their medals.”
And finally, apart from doing a lot of re-reading of favourite books, I tuned into my first ever Spaces on Twitter which was dealing with djinns and supernatural stories (almost got scared silly) - and ended up reading a lot of jinn stories over here