A Saree for Ammi

A Saree for Ammi

Story: Mamta Nainy

Pictures: Sandhya Prabhat

Tulika Publishers

2019

  

As a society we have a dislike, a disdain, for questions. More so for difficult questions, questions which make us uncomfortable. Not only do we refrain from asking such questions but we also look down upon those asking them. Beginning with homes, moving on to schools and further on this continues during our lives.

A Saree for Ammi raises the issue of the economic divide. A daughter of weaver parents’ wonders “Ammi makes so many sarees, but she doesn’t wear any of them”. For a book that primarily caters to children (5+ says the cover) this is welcome indeed. We perhaps are beginning to treat children as individuals. Children, who possibly are better equipped to deal with the situation!

Not just for children. Many a time, books such as these enable adults to think with their hearts in a manner than data driven voluminous reports do not. Some of us associate weaving with places (Banaras or Maheshwar), some with art (albeit a dying one), some with expensive clothes (or select brands), and else, but how many of us have wondered on this aspect? Is this very different from that of (most) taxi drivers who drop people to airport not being able to afford flying in airplanes?

Questions such as the one raised by the book are pertinent as we increasingly move towards higher income inequality and are less and less aware of worlds other than the one we inhabit. Lack of awareness is more often than not a precursor to absence of empathy. Empathy towards those who are not like us. We adults, many a time, pretend as if some people (who are not part of our world) do not exist, and the children take cue. This is not exactly an ingredient for a healthy society!

This is a book that can be a platform to discuss difficult yet crucial issues with children as also with adults. How do we treat our artisans? Or how weaving is a family occupation? Talking about weaving I wonder how children from weaving families would look at this book! In Banaras, for example, a sizeable chunk of weavers is averse to their children continuing their profession. Not a surprise given that many of them have had to become daily wager labourers at construction sites.

In the story a young girl admires the sarees her mother weaves. She wonders why her mother does not wear them. She then teams up with her sister to get a saree for her mother. A saree their mother had woven. A saree they want to see her dressed in. The young and enterprising girls are judged, advised, preached to by none as we flip pages. The text and the illustrations gel together. The eyes, especially, are eye-catching!

The last line makes it a perfect ending, if there is one, “when Sadaf and I give that saree to Ammi, what will she say, we wonder . . .”