Pitha (পিঠা)

A young woman joined our team earlier this month. Her elder sister has been working with us for a while and so she suggested that her younger sister try her hand at embroidery. And so this young woman comes to learn whenever she can find the time as she is also enrolled in a Distance Learning course for a Masters Degree in a nearby college.

It has been a week since she joined us. She has picked up the basic stitches and is doing rather well. We meet on an almost daily basis and today as I was leaving, Aita who usually comes and hands me some hilika (haritaki), handed me a packet. I asked her what it was and she asked me to look. It was pitha and coconut laddoos! It was an extremely touching gesture.

You see pitha is usually made on occasions such as Bihu where changes in the farming season are marked. The community comes together to cook and eat together, to dance, to pray and pay their respect to the forces of nature. And so I could not help but think that, for her, embroidery was important, perhaps as important as Bihu. After all, similar to Bihu, embroidery too brings us together.