Bodhi returns to Chennai with lockdown-inspired motifs

Designer Mala Sinha brings a host of collections to Chennai under Bodhi, with tongue-in-cheek prints that take inspiration from a difficult year

In one of the latest collections of Bodhi, by fashion designer Mala Sinha, a sari stands out. Trudging along the rim of its pallu is a young girl on a cycle, her braid flying with the wind, her father seated pillion. The breezy motif can in no way be called grim, yet it pays tribute to one of the most haunting images of India’s COVID-19 lockdown.

Mala calls the design Babuji Ki Bitiya: it is a hat tip to the girl who had to cycle hundreds of kilometres from Gurgaon to her home in Bihar, with her ailing father. It is one of the more poignant components of her Corona Collection, “which also features some tongue-in-cheek patterns, translated using wooden blocks onto fabric,” she says over a phone call.