लीला ❁ Phulkari Stole { 11 }

While the whole world is going nuts creating and apparently solving complexities, there still are a few blessed ones, for whom life is simple…. Not because they are incapable, but because they choose it as their default…  Does God bestow grace in such wondrous ways? Like dogs can’t get over solving the bone puzzle while the master is actually making time for other important things…. Things like making a life for Veera and Harpal…. somewhere in the lap of mother earth…

Veera and Harpal were two such souls … who had found each other…. not here, but in the infinite archival of souls God curates. Now, this God is a loner. Having balanced all his karmas, he does not associate with any form or name anymore. So, holding hands, the two decided to descend on the planet….

Yellow-green fields, five rivers fragmenting the land, cozy homes, warm hearts…. There was bounty and two kids were born, each in a neighboring house, one as boy and the other one as girl….A brand new tractor bought by the boy’s father and a golden Phulkari wedding dress embroidered by the girl’s grandmother were assets gifted to the family and the celebrations began mutually….

They grew up much as the other kids of the village… learning and playing in the same fields they fed on… growing fonder with adolescence, they learnt to walk together, with a bicycle and a sugarcane almost always accompanying them along the fields. Getting them married to each other occurred only as an obvious next step to both the families… It was time that Veera put her many years of learning and imagination together to create the most exquisite masterpiece. She was to embroider a full Odhni with Phulkari…. putting in it, all her vivid colorful dreams….With a few months in hand… she began… a Red one…her favorite color since she was sixteen. Nineteen now, she wanted to mix it with pink roses and give it a golden edging… which would look beautiful with her golden jewelry… in-between came her beloved butterflies and birds….a shining ‘Garden of Flowers’ was in making…. ‘Reshmi Dhaga’ decorating the Khaddar (coarse khadi) background. With not an inch of the fabric left visible, she had patiently created a Bagh Phulkari. 

With many more Phulkari Duppattas, lehengas, cholis, a Darshan Dwaar for the pooja and some basics to start a new household as gifts from her friends and kins, she was all set for a familiar new journey. A Devi incarnated… Laxmi, as they call any newlywed bride entering a new household, she was dazzling in Red and Gold from head to toe… Eyes gleaming with happiness, hands raised to shower flowers, vocal chords synchronized to sing prayers…. melodious, in chorus… as they took the vows around sacred fire.

The Parmatma, who had nothing to do with anything, also was provoked to lift up and bless the occasion…. such harmony was a rarity on earth now a days…

They lived together as a couple, kind and content and were soon blessed with a baby girl, whom they lovingly named Shereen. She was brought up not as a girl or a boy but as a human being….learning embroidery from her mother and helping her father in the fields…she was one heart between the two of them. Mother often brought lunch to the fields…steeling herself from farm jobs, maintaining household, fetching water from well, cooking, fetching timber for burning, taking care of cattle and the other chores of household ….always in a sturdy Khaddar Kameez-Salwar and a phulkari Dupatta gracing her well-structured body. Both Harpal and Shereen would run to her at a glance and the trio would sit complete under a Peepal tree for lunch… fresh maze bread, spinach, green chillis, jaggery, Chaas and giggles…

“Can I embroider this Hari Mirch on my Rumaal” Shereen inquisitive and eager to put everything around her on her recent piece of embroidery asked.

And her mother laughed “don’t you see better things around…look at that newborn calf, the yellow mustard flowers… how about making those triangular mountains or the orange sun…”

Shereen “This dragonfly?!?”

Veera “Ummm…. Let’s make the Rail Gaadi…. Loooong as a snake…”

Sheeren “Yaaa… and I’ll also make you both and me sitting in it….”

Both chuckled giving hi fives to each other…Tinkling of glass bangles and giggles brought a smile on father’s face who was happily napping under the shade…

She was not just an apple but a basket full of apples of her parents’ eyes…

One of the many accomplished love stories from the land of Punjab… may not be so great because no one ever wished to exaggerate and portray it larger than life…But good… it was…. And since it was an accomplished one, it was also great beyond examples…

Veera and Harpal worked hard in fields and fed thousands without infusing life threatening chemicals into their genes, they chose to spread good health as farmers, even if it meant harvesting limited quantities and earning a few thousands lesser than they could if they used chemicals on their soil. They gave, generously to whoever came needy to their doorstep. They sent their only child, a girl, to study with local kids in the village, to teach her lessons of humility and empathy before she went up to learn medicine, engineering, acting, writing or flying airplanes….which of course was left upto her own discretion…. She was allowed to imagine….

No, she was not married at 19, not because it was too young or old and age but because she hadn’t met her soul mate till then….but a box full of Phulkaris…her explorations from the time she was a little girl to when she became an adult was kept aside safely…. One for every occasion…Red for marriage, pink for when she would become a mother, blues and violets for other occasions, whites and goldens for when she would be a grown up women and a stark white for the final journey… Whether it was Baisakhi, Lohdi, Holi, Gurupurab, Janmashtmi or just another day a Punjabi felt like some Dhol and Bhangda, Phulkari was always around dancing Gidda…