Written by Jyoti Rajan Gopal and illustrated by Art Twink, My Paati’s Saris (Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2022) is a multi-layered story.
Paati in Tamil means grandmother. The story is about a child who finds comfort, joy, and security in his grandmother’s saris. This simple narrative has the potential of becoming a starting point for having an array of discussions with young readers, particularly among South Asians, about gender, clothes, and their interrelation (or lack thereof?).
It is perhaps that Jyoti Rajan Gopal — who has experienced diverse cultures owing to her childhood being spent across multiple countries — is a Kindergarten teacher and also a parent, that she is able to delicately represent a child’s thoughts; their fears, desires, and joys in simple, straightforward language. Supporting her text, and, in fact, enhancing it in many ways, are illustrations by Art Twink — a Bengali-American, multi-disciplinary artist.
They have infused feelings through their illustrations in this story. Not only is each page eruditely structured with the scenery but it’s also the thoughtful choice of colours that uplifts the scene. Especially the gorgeous saris, which are at the heart of this story.
For me, the book can be read in more ways than one.
First, it’s a critique of society, which has gendered clothes and as a result has visually categorised the world into the gender binary. But it depicts that children don’t discriminate; until and unless the world is organised before them in clear-cut, segregated compartments, they’re quite open to accepting it as is.
Perhaps the world would be a different place if, neither at home nor in educational institutes, were children taught to represent their gender by wearing certain kinds of clothes, and feel shame in wearing the other kind(s). If they were taught that clothes have a utilitarian role and in no way do they provide information about a person’s identity, like what gender they identify with and who they are romantically attracted towards, I believe that there would no need of sensitizing them as adults such as in workplaces and civic spaces. However, given the current circumstances, there is a great need for this and books like My Paati’s Saris are a great help.
But besides the deep socio-political connotations it exudes, at its heart it is a deeply personal story. It is about the bonds a child creates during these tender years and remembers and lives with their warmth throughout their life.
While it is always the people who are remembered sorely, often it’s also the material things associated with them that remind us of them. It can be the fabric, as it is in the case of this book. Sample this sentence: “From then to now, from old to young, a thread that weaves through the years and joins us, a family.” It is also about having an identity: not only a collective one, for example, that of a family, but also of an individual, as this boy notes — “my paati’s saris invite me to EXPLORE, DARE, BE.” How expressive is this young child who is able to offer multiple reasons as to why, for him, the saris means so much more than just a piece of cloth that his Paati wraps herself in! For him, they symbolise a private world in which him and his Paati peacefully rejoice in.
