About Weddings and Marriages

Saree My Festive Outfit and What Does it Stand For?   Saree tops my list of festive outfits.   My Saree Memories  I got fascinated with the saree from an early age.  Then a long saree wasn't popular among women in my place, but short versions in white and easy to drape.  Those who preferred the long reserved it for functions and travel.  My mother kept a small collection of the long in silk and cotton, draped on when she visited her family home and attended weddings and functions.  She and her friends initiated the idea of a women's collective in our village. Seeing my mother in a saree, my eyes would pop out in joy and surprise about how she got inside that unwieldy piece, six-by-four-meter.  After use, she would fold one and keep it on the bed before packing it into her box.  I would always wait for that chance to creep inside its folders to drown in her scent and the textile's silky softness.   As a teen, I draped a half-saree in fashion then.  It was easy-tuck one end i

How Do You Remember the Teachers Day?   An updated post The image was set in the Canva.com frame Teachers' day brings so many memories to me both good and bad. Highlighting the good memories of teachers' day That day, we all assembled in a classroom, the last assembly in class 5, the top grade in my primary school.  It was customary for the school head teacher to give us a pep talk in that assembly.; he was our maths teacher. We were two in class 5, competing for the top position, a boy and me, and it depended on who scored highest in Maths.   The headteacher would also make mention the academic excellence on that occasion. He started with a sad note and was disappointed in the learner's performances-very few learners had paid attention to the exam writing techniques he hammered into us in the days he prepared us for the exam, etc. And he concluded by showing his pride in one learner who scored 100 % in maths, which was me.   Whenever I think of teachers' day, the incid

"You strike a woman; you strike a rock." Black Women's Struggle and 1956 Women's March in South Africa      August is Celebrated as Women's Month in South Africa.   It commemorates the South African women's historic fight against the White supremacist colonial regime that subjected them to violence, detention, jail terms, poverty, and social, economic, and racial oppression. Women's Struggle-Colonial History of South Africa and the Context       Let me give a brief on it to the readers who have no grasp of South Africa's colonial history . Geographically, the country is at the southern tip of Africa. To understand the  narrative better, please follow the colonial map shown below.  Courtesy of University of Texas Libraries, Perry-Castaneda-Library Map Collection: Historical Maps of Africa.      Before the colonialists trespassed on South Africa, the land was the home to the Indigenous African populations. The southern Cape region/colony was home to the