Sabkush Lifestyle News: Do you own an Ahimsa sari? .

Sabkush Lifestyle News: Do you own an Ahimsa sari? .Do you own an Ahimsa sari?

From flying planes, scripting TV & Radio programs to weaving short stories and then getting on to another kind of weaving...this time of saris, life gave quiet a chances to experiment with, to 72 years old Usha Raghunathan. And must say, the woman took every chance in her stride and proved herself! “Every time life threw a circumstance at me, I tried to achieve something out of it, which I managed to,” says a satisfied Usha in a telephonic interview. Here are a few excerpts... You are a multi-talented being. Tell us something about the transition from being the first woman pilot of South India to writer and finally to designer.... I have had a very tough time as a child. I lost my mother when I was very young. So, I lived with my grand parents in Chennai. My father worked in the Air Force Civil Aviation department; I used to visit him during vacations. The runway was very close to our home and thanks to the not-so-stringent security in those days, we used to go walking on the runway and that’s how I got inclined towards flying. From the very beginning I was independent enough to experiment with things. Once I became a pilot, I was asked to write about my experience. Like that, my writing got appreciated and soon I found myself writing columns in newspapers and short stories. It was after my daughter was born, that I was exposed to TV, where I compered a few TV shows and scripted shows for AIR. Designing came quite late in the picture. In fact, I had no knowledge about designing apart from knowing the colours. However, I used to design for my teenage daughters, which were appreciated by her friends. But it was my daughter-in-law, who wanted me to do something exciting. It began 27 years ago, when I organized a coffee morning at my place, to show a collection of saris that I brought from a shop called Urvashi, which was a big brand in Chennai. My selection got thumbs up, and soon I took over Urvashi and that’s how I got into business. How did you move ahead? Since, I am a connoisseur of traditional saris; I met weavers from places like Kanchipuram, Aarni. Raasipuram and explained them my design sense. Gave them the colour combinations and the border patterns and got the kind of designs I wanted. Then on, I began working on my brand titled USHAS. What’s the inspiration behind your designs? Anything that’s traditional, old and rich in appeal. I always got attracted to designs worn by my great grand mother. What have been some of your ‘hot’ selling designs? A collection, where I reproduced the saris worn long ago by the renowned classical dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale of Chennai sold like hot cakes. Also, the reproduction of saris worn by characters in artist Ravi Varma’s paintings got very popular. I collected all the paintings and replicated them into my creation of saris. Even today people ask for those designs.