She touched the silver bindi on her forehead. She touched the gold border of the saree. She thought of the old weaver in Yeola, dead now, who had poured his last months into this cloth. She thought of her daughter, three oceans away, who would open her parcel and smell the cardamom of Suhas Kala Mandir. She thought of her mother-in-law, who would probably clutch her pearls if she saw a widow in a Paithani.
But today, Meera switched off the phone alarm. Today, she was not a widow. She was not a mother. She was simply Meera, and she was going to buy a saree. She touched the silver bindi on her forehead
And then she thought of nothing at all.
She took up a job as a coordinator for a small NGO that taught handloom weaving to rural women. It was a scandal, of course. “A vidhava working?” the aunties in the building society whispered. “What will people say?” Meera had looked at them, her silver bindi glinting, and said, “Let them say it in a lower voice. I have work.” She thought of her daughter, three oceans away,
A minute later, Ritu replied with a string of emojis: a crying face, a heart, a saree, an Indian flag. Then a text: “Who ARE you??” Today, she was not a widow
She had spent the first year in a fog of bhog —the ritual feeding of mourners. The second year, she began to notice things. The way the afternoon sun made a ladder of light on the living room floor. The taste of a perfectly ripe Alphonso mango. The silence, which had once been oppressive, began to feel like a conversation.
The transaction felt like a ceremony. Suhas wrapped the sarees in brown paper, tied them with white twine, and placed a single marigold on top. “For prosperity,” he said.