'Didi Mithoon'

"Didi Mithoon...." the voice from other side would eagerly announce on my landline phone long ago in Chennai. He would come from Kolkata with group of traders and stay near Central at some lodge and call me. Don't know how or when I first saw this boy with bundle of sarees on the streets in Besant Nagar and let him in. He was so boyish and it was pity more than fondness for sarees. Mithoon was hardly 16, and he told me he lost his father young and his mother and sister weave and he decided to go around selling sarees. The first time he came, he couldn't even speak Hindi, and slowly over several visits it improved. Wonder how he managed to go around and do business in Chennai. He would come home, sell sarees to me, chat, and sometime I used to give him upma or whatever food I had made. I used to buy some simple cottons from him and once he had brought this Tussar Kanta #100SareePact. I knew this wasn't the best quality Tussar or Kanta, but it worked out cheap for me and Mithoon could sell one of the costlier sarees in his sack. Even after I left Chennai - I had given him the contact of my friend Vimala Sanjay - she bought two sarees from him for me and brought it to Mumbai. Don't know if Vimala met him after that, or what happened to Mithoon. I will keep these sarees with me as a reminder of that young boy, today must be a family man well settled in business! The blouse is a kasauti embroidery....though I had liked the cream silk blouse I had made then wore this for the sake of comfort.