Secrets of a saree

Swati Das and Mahesh Dattani at the recording of the play at Harkat Studios, Andheri

A side pillow that's battered from travelling across cities because sleep eludes you without it; a whiffy drawer stashed with trinkets that no one's allowed to touch; a slightly crooked Christmas tree that lit up your first home in a strange city - it's surprising how much of our lives seemingly lifeless objects hold. "Most of our lives, we imagine that we only connect with people, but actually almost half of it is spent building relationships with objects," muses actor Swati Das who gracefully essays a Patan patola saree in playwright Mahesh Dattani's new audio play, A Little Drape of Heaven. The sensorial production was commissioned by the New York City-based This Is Not a Theatre Company, as part of the Plays at Home series.

The play revolves around a Patan patola saree

These relationships with objects, Das points out, are visceral, compounded by smell, texture, memory and nostalgia. So, a Patan patola - a double-ikat hand-woven silk saree, which takes 10 months to be created, and was originally worn by women from aristocratic families - is more than a bunch of threads. In Dattani's play, she tucks in her folds an exclusive 850-year-old artisanal heritage, the secrets of the nimble fingers that dyed and wove each thread patiently during a plague in Gujarat, her own memory of being wrapped around a young bride, the tragedy of being locked away in a Godrej cupboard for two decades, and the joy of being discovered by a little boy. "Anything that's organic has stories to tell and secrets to share. The story touches upon contact between organic creatures, our relationship with fabrics, and while it doesn't directly talk about cross-dressing, it is one of the events that makes the story move forward," he notes.

Karan Talwar

Starting off as a narrator, Das effortlessly slips into the role of the patola saree, singing the Gujarati folk song Chhelaji re mari hatu patan thi patola. Flitting between different rasas - a tragic birth, a joyous trousseau, a sensuous secret-keeper - she lends life to the six-yard garment. The idea of secrecy, she says, forms the core of the relationship between the boy and the saree. "He is curious about his mother's saree; he wants to drape it, play with it, but somewhere, he knows that he's not supposed to. So it's all done in secrecy," reveals the actor who's enjoyed the rare chance to be able to play an inanimate object.

Das's playful portrayal is elevated by an intimate, ASMR soundscape. There's the creak of the trustworthy Godrej lock, the swish of the saree being pulled out, the rustle of the silk being draped by a boy, and the loud beating of his anxious little heart that is besotted with the grand textile. "It was an interesting experience designing the soundscape because it's a departure from the usual sanitised aesthetic of sound. This was raw, and improvised. It's not like the artiste is in your ear; you are in the space of the artiste," shares Karan Talwar of Harkat Studios, who designed the sound.

Dattani's mother's own gold thread-work wedding saree inspired the site-specific play, which we feel is best enjoyed if, like the narrator urges, you pick out a cherished fabric from your cupboard, and wrap it around. Go on, share your secrets with it.

Till: January 7
Log on to: eventbrite.com or @harkat.studios on Instagram for the registration link
Cost: USD 1-7