The Art of Decluttering

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.