India is known for its beautiful sarees from each state, especially from Bengal and Gujarat.

A discussion of Bengal’s aatpoure saree drape has drawn renewed attention to Jnanadanandini Devi’s reform-era fashioning. Her Bengal-Gujarat version helped shape the modern saree silhouette, which is now becoming the new craze of India.

A saree drape has surprisingly originated at the centre of a cultural and political deliberation in Bengal. What initiated as social media esteem for women wearing the traditional aatpoure style rapidly spiralled into arguments over authenticity, identity and history. While some claimed this was the “real” Bengali culture, retrieving astronomical, others pointed out that the modern saree silhouette itself was shaped by connections elsewhere in Bengal, particularly with western India during the 19th century.

Which became the debate, captivatingly, fetches us to a woman from the Tagore household and a Bengal-Gujarat assembly that quietly changed the way much of India wears a saree today. However, there are now many ways to drape a saree.

For some reason, we impulsively call “traditional” the modern saree drape, which is unexpectedly recent, and it is not completely local.

We, as Indians, generally know the saree today as a neat front pleat, pallu falling over the left shoulder, worn with a blouse and petticoat, which may differ region-wise. It was, in many ways, shaped and refined over time. And at the centre of that shift was Jnanadanandini Devi.

If we glance at our history, sarees were draped according to the heat or cold of different regions.  Women dress in variations of the antariya, uttariya, and stanapatta — pieces of cloth draped around the body, depending on climate and context. In several regions, particularly in northern India, the upper torso was often left uncovered, a common feature in temple statuary and early art. The blouse, as we know it today, did not merely occur.

If we glance at towns or cities, we often see a saree, which is still commonly worn today with pleats in front and the pallu over the left shoulder, quietly tracing back to that moment of exchange between Bengal and western India. Astonishing, maybe, known as traditional.