Description Bagging seeds to relax our eyes, making a cloth pad as self-care, draping a saree like trousers to go upside down, drawing to feed ants: can ancient rituals, practices and their objects work as modern ‘tools’ to ‘declutter’ our almost overloaded senses? Clutter―real and virtual―is a part of our life now. These cleansing rituals and healing practices are believed to have old-world history, rooted essence, purgative properties, health benefits, and zero or minimal waste. If tweaked, it can even help us declutter to stay on top of our body–mind game. Laced with nostalgia and punctuated with delightful memories, explorations and failures, The Art of Decluttering takes you through nine retellings of clothing, home and body, which make aspects of ancient Indian ritualistic life relatable to the modern reader. About the Author Bhawana Pingali is a mother of a teen and has been a fashion writer and academic for over two decades. After a stint as fashion features editor with Femina (Times Group), she contributed independently to The Hindu, Mint Lounge, Time Out, Lonely Planet, Travel Leisure, Maxim, Orissa Post and Signature Oman, among others. She has taught at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (Mumbai), Pearl Academy, Symbiosis Institute of Design, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, British Council, and GD Goenka and Ansal universities. Her heart now lies in teaching yoga pranayama, restoring old saris and old-world practices and rituals through the spiritual fashion-learning platform Revastra.
