Wisdom commeth with age.

Now that I’m going out and about a bit, on public transport (buses, I heart you), I’m finding the need to bring out my pre-pandemic wardrobe. Commute clothes, all-weather clothes etc.

Lulz, a lot of things don’t fit anymore.

Off I goes shopping, hoping to find a bunch of cheap but colourful kurtas WITH POCKETS DAMMIT, made of khadi, that hardy handloom cotton.

None to be found.

The most hideous designs fill the showrooms of the market near my home.

(I’m a dissertating student near her deadline-near home is all I can manage.)

Pass.

One shop has something that might do- a gorgeous orange almost handloomy cotton (no pockets, not cheap). It will have to do.

I wear it to the ashram, thankful to ditch the one oversize kurta I had, that I’d been repeating. (Every wash it got two shades lighter.) I find when the sun falls on it, it catches fire-aesthetically speaking. I love it.

I’m unemployed, but I sweat a lot, so I need more kurtas. Back I goes again, and ignoring the shop owner’s exhortations to good sense, I buy another almost exact same kurta.

Because I’m old now, and allowed to do things like this. And wise is wearing orange that glows on fire, setting heart alight.