WORN WITH LOVE

“THE STARK CONTRAST OF NAIZA’S CAGED CORSET CREATES AN UNNERVING BALANCE BETWEEN SEDUCTION AND AGGRESSION.”
—RADHIKA CHOPRA

THE GREATEST GIFT

By Nonita Kalra

Growing up, my favourite place in the house was my mother’s elegantly appointed dressing room. In the centre, there was an antique table with a three-winged mirror, and many drawers stacked with delicate glass bangles, pearl-encrusted hair nets, gold-stemmed Estée Lauder lipsticks placed in teak wood stands, alongside cut-glass perfume bottles with atomisers. She had a complex ritual of getting ready, and I was always there. Watching. Absorbing.

Once she left the room, I would study everything she touched and everything she owned. I had to document what she wore. We were close once. So close that I knew about her moods through her choice of clothing. When she pulled out her chainmail jumpsuit she was at her most vulnerable because at that moment she had to dazzle. When she whipped out her chiffons she was making a statement about her sensuality, the blouse was short and the drape dangerously low. My mother used fashion articulately and I got that intuitively.

Eventually her dressing room was turned into my bedroom. By then we had stopped talking. Mothers and daughters argue, it’s a rite of passage. But for us, it was worse. We no longer fit. And it hurt, savagely. So I painted the walls black. Dark and dense to erase all memory. At the same time, I also chose to wear only black. Every day. I still do.

As soon as I could I left home, never to return. Of course I visited. First for holidays, then for funerals. The distance between my mother and I grew and at some point all we had was a semblance of love but no words to communicate it. When she died in 2011, the conversation ended.

Or so I thought. More recently, when I was deciding what to wear at my wedding, I asked myself, what does a 49-year-old editor of a fashion magazine wear? I wanted something bespoke, something with history. Perhaps something my beloved grandmother had worn? That’s when I came across a piece my mother had made for her trousseau. Back in the 1960s, it was common practice to go to Benaras and sit with the weavers and select your saris. I remember this was one of my mother’s favourites. It had antique silver zari, was heavy, weighing almost three kgs, and when I draped it, I could hear her voice again. “Tie your petticoat so tight you cant breathe, it’s the only way to keep