Bag it!

When I was in fourth grade, my grandparents visited Shirdi, the temple town of SaiBaba, which wasn't as popular then as it is now. (Their prayer room used to have a life size framed art of the spiritual guru in a mystical, monochromatic look.) When they came back, they bought me and my cousins little gifts. My brother got a wooden bullock cart toy and my little sister got wooden utensils for her kitchen role play and my older sister and I got Bags - brightly striped ones, made with canvas like cotton material in red and yellow! It was then that the 'seed' of my fascination for bags came into being. In that bag, I used to carry my books to school. Often times I used to wonder how the stripes were quilted together, also introducing me to the awe of color and pattern. I did, ever since, continue my very committed fling with bags. During my school days, when I used to visit my grandparents in their town, I used to sit in the front porch of their busy street looking longingly at cotton handbags that hung in the windows of the hand loom store that was bang opposite my grandparents' house. "Haryana Handlooms" the hoarding read. Knowing the place from my geography lessons the shop sold me dreams of owing a colorful, thick and luscious bag made of the softest natural fibers in a distant land up north that had fancy salwar suits and light skinned ladies with long, healthy braids. As I grew older, into a teenager and moved out of town to attend high school, my mom bought me an oversized purse like book bag in  a stiff PVC material. I loved it then, only to realize a back pack would have been more age appropriate. I still love it though! :) Then the annual visit to the industrial exhibition in Hyderabad used to up my hopes for acquiring handbags in the same enthusiasm as an art connoisseur would acquire antiques. I remember falling flat for a fur (hopefully faux) bag in one of those stalls and bargaining for it till I crossed the sensitive limits of bargaining and got told off by the shop keeper. I remember muttering an apology and flashing the meager contents of my purse in an attempt to tell him that my bargaining skills weren't meant to disgrace his business acumen. It was not until I landed my prized job before I turned eighteen that I could fund my pretty petty love for bags - even then, sparingly. Mid nineties weren't today definitely, where a hundred rupee not still carried a lot of value. Having a steady income as a central government employee did do wonders to my confidence and love for bags and thus, bags were acquired in periodic intervals. I remember buying a beautifully embroidered velvet bag with resin trim that created a little tempest in the ticket booking office of the railway station in that little town - Lady colleagues swooning over the design, men colleagues inquiring about the shop I bought it at. I did end up giving it away to a cousin that fell for it. I seemed to like off beat bags, shapeless sacks, often over sized ones that overpowered my then lanky frame. I was told by numerous young men that my bags attempt at making me look a) old, b) odd, c) fashion challenged d) all of the above! But I guess I'd been the off beat minimalist all my life that liked organic looking stuff. I used to craft envelope like bags out of burlap, sew formless sacks out of soft cotton fabric (thanks to the sewing skills I picked up in my mom's craft school) and then tote them around like a model with attitude on a sizzling ramp - except that my choice of bags made people notice me for the wrong reasons. Like any other young and available woman might do, I did attract my share of prospective suitors that used to make calls on my office phone to try their luck at putting me down by making funny remarks about my then dull, jaded and distressed looking bag made of the muddiest possible earth toned suede patches. I took tremendous pride in that bag. It carried my sketch pad, a magazine, a book and other paraphernalia, mostly chewing gum, lip balm and a little coin purse. It was supposed to be a cross body bag. Since I didn't really like wearing it like a messenger bag, I remember making a knot at the top of the handle to shorten it's length. I think, that alteration didn't really help with the general look of it anyway ;-)


In the meanwhile, I did yearn and long for a genuine leather hand bag. Once during my visit to the city, I went around the bustling busy streets looking for a genuine leather handbag. On that fateful trip, I learnt all I could about PVC, the vinyl that was sold in most places as genuine leather. I learned how it smelled, like artificial something as opposed to the rich, intense smell of leather (Did anyone check out the new Fendi fragrance? wasn't it supposed to have a leather note? - don't quote me on that though :-P) And finally, when I found the perfect shade of the perfect leather bag in a perfect little store, I walked out sans the bag as it was only four times the price of what I intended or afforded to spend on it. Not until my hubby bought me my first little flap bag by Nine west did I own something in leather. 


My migrating to the USA put a whole new life into my handbag fetish - thankfully, I never really looked
 at an LV or even a  Hermes Berkin, ( except the beautiful black one carried by Hina rabbari Khar, Pakistan's looker of a minister) as something drool worthy. I have some branded bags, mostly the ones I'd strategically purchased during sales and in outlets but as I grow older, I realize that a brand is just a hype around a name. I would still get attracted to the burlap sacs that bring in my rice from the grocery store. Once in a while, I save the bags in a hope to transform them into a handbag  adorned with some abstract cross stitching in bright yarn. I pick up the bargain deals in handmade bags embellished with mirrors and shells on the busy streets of Mumbai and wear them proudly on my trips to the mall, grocery store and the school pick up and drop off. A bag has come to mean a lot to me - a lot of symbolism, like the baggage I choose to carry. It makes me feel prepared to face the world, to feel self equipped. It symbolizes to me the very different take I have on accessories in particular and fashion sense in general. I might one day, very soon, renounce leather - one of my favorite materials along with silk only as a vegetarian that doesn't want to kill life for vanity. I might do it one day, I might not! But my burlap fascination will last me a long time to come. I know, I know - it might not make a particularly great statement about my style - but it does, hopefully make a unique one.