Lakshmi Menon Covers Vogue India March 2022 in 'The Sari Holds Our Secrets'

Lakshmi Menon Covers Vogue India March 2022 in 'The Sari Holds Our Secrets' AOC Fashion

Lakshmi Menon covers the March 2022 issue of Vogue India, ‘A Homecoming’, marking a return to part-time modeling after the birth of her daughter Gayatri with Suhel Seth, who she married in 2018. Megha Kapoor styles Menon in ‘Shapes And Drapes’, lensed by Ashish Shah [IG]./ Hair & makeup by Mitesh Rajani

Rather than an interview with Lakshmi Menon, Vogue India chooses to focus on the traditional sari that covers her body and those of Indian women across the continent. It’s impossible not to quote liberally from the exquisite writing of Bandana Tewari in ‘The sari holds our secrets’. Her words are among the most poetic and deeply probing ones I’ve read about women lives and women’s bodies in a long time.

For Indian Women Historically: Body and Sari Are Inseparable

Sari, or ‘strip of cloth’ in Sanskrit, is much more than a piece of clothing, explains Tewari.

It is the subcontinent’s collective dream of womanhood, of femininity, and a lifelong ritual of love and pleasure immersed in the shapes and drapes of our inner worlds. Mothers, whilst draping saris on their coming-of-age daughters, are known to gently whisper, “We are dressing not just our bodies but also our emotions.”

Body and sari are inseparable — “the sex-yard dance of our natural curves, the meandering metaphors of our lives, the contours of our thrills and the creases of our discomfort.”

We learn the story of the disrobing of Draupadi, a “powerful story of the sacred alchemy of weave and wearer. There is a much more in-depth probing of the story of Draupadi in The Hindu.

Personally I believe in the creative use of fantasy and allegory in the treatment of sexual trauma. In my own case I developed a metaphorical relationship with a tree representing Gaia and through meditation I gave her all my “crud” for composting and rebirth — the terrible residue of my own sexual assault. I visualized an umbilical cord relationship with my beloved tree.

Reading this story about Draupadi, it is so powerful and also there are healing purposes to it that could be employed in visualization techniques for survivors of deep sexual assault. I’m not speaking of an unwanted kiss or your butt being squeezed by a stranger in an elevator. I speak of deadly, vicious assault which often leaves women {or men] consumed with guilt and stain — and a sense of being the sinner herself, the wearer of the scarlet letter.

Read on: Lakshmi Menon Covers Vogue India March 2022 in 'The Sari Holds Our Secrets' AOC Fashion