To mark International Women’s Day 2020, we organised a community-wide ‘Sari Day’, with help from Equality Action. Women from Indian Gujarati and Punjabi and Bangladeshi communities came together to mark International Women’s Day through wearing a sari that holds personal memories to them. Sari Day was a one-off event, however, overwhelmingly, attendees requested more sessions where they could attend wearing saris in Loughborough.
We invited the women to watch this short film Sundar Sari by Pooja Kaul with us and to discuss the significance of the sari to British South Asian women. We also asked the women about the memories surrounding the sari they chose to wear on the day.
“I think saris are – they pass on as well. Like, from your grandma to your mum, the daughter, granddaughter, that’s one thing we’ll pass on. I mean, with other clothes, like Punjabi suits and things like that, I don’t think people would save them as memories, but saris are memories and they do get passed on in generations … so my daughter’s going to be getting married and she wants to take some of my saris, what she liked … So it’s memories with the saris and then she might pass it on to her daughter and this is the thing. Saris do go on.”
– Interviewee
The Border and Fall film anthology of documenting India’s regional sari drapes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzpzF3EZa3rtRYCrSw4E8P-hvv7-lHVmR
