A few weeks ago we went to the Orissa Bhawan to an exhibition held by Boyanika, the store front for the Orissa State Handloom Weaver's Cooperative Society. Boyonika has a store in Palika Bazar, New Delhi and additionally holds exhibitions during festivals like Diwali at the Orissa Bhawan here. They carry a wide variety of sarees, stoles, kurtis, salwar suit pieces, kurtas, handloom towels, bedsheets, bedcovers, etc. They normally have a 20% discount on their sale but this time round they had a special 30% discount.
The exhibition was in the Orissa Bhawan basement maybe since the rains had played spoilsport earlier in the day. They had a pandal erected in the grounds with some decorations but not much effort was put into doing up the basement hall. A few sarees and kurtas were displayed on the walls of the hall and the rest of the stuff was piled high on tables behind the counters. So I started pointing out
colors and designs I wanted to see and the salesperson was good enough to open it. They had amazing saris - Tussars, Bomkai, Sambalpuri, Sonepur, etc. all hand woven by weavers in Orissa. Some sarees he said, took up to a month to weave. I made my selection and continued talking to the salesperson about the different sarees. We saw a few more sarees of which a silk-tissue saree blew us off with its intricate weave and deservedly was the costliest saree there at Rs.25000.00!
