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It was in the frenzy of wedding season that Kolkata decided to find me.

The countless rows of shops looked disorderly at first glance – sarees spilling from shelves, colours stacked in uneven towers, shopkeepers calling out to passing customers. Nothing arranged, nothing seemed deliberate. And yet, the moment I stepped inside one of these shops, I realised everything demanded attention.

For instance, colour.

I was just trying to find sarees for myself, and what I thought would be simple quickly became anything but that. An orange-ish red wouldn’t do. A peachy pink didn’t make the cut. Each shade had to be exact.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

“Basonti,” one shopkeeper said, holding up a soft mix of yellow and peach that felt warmer than the others.

“Kacha holud,” another suggested, raw turmeric, bright and alive, or “peyaaji,” onion pink, faint and tender.

Each colour arrived with care, a story and a vivid image. The shopkeepers didn’t simply display fabric; they described it until I could see it differently. They held a saree up to the light, tilted it slightly, and asked me to notice how the shade changed, how it softened, how it deepened.

Their language made me look closer.

What seemed similar from afar slowly separated into distinctions – this one warmer, that one gentler; this one muted like early........

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