To all our moms, with love: When Chai Met Toast dive into how they are taking their mothers on tour

As indie band When Chai Met Toast prepares to take its music across borders on an international tour it is also carrying something far more intimate along for the journey Pieces of home stitched into what they wearFor guitarist and banjo player Achyuth Jaigopal the idea began not as a fashion statement but as an emotional extension of the bandrsquos upcoming album Small Town Big Love Little Homes ldquoHome is an underlying concept throughout the albumrdquo he explains ldquoIt exists as people feelings places mdash a multitude of things across different songsrdquoThe fourmember band also comprising vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar keyboardist Palee Francis and drummer Pai Sailesh has always drawn from personal experiences while composing But this time something shifted The idea of ldquohomerdquo became visual tactile and deeply personal ldquoWhen we wanted to portray the album visually we asked ourselves lsquowhat is the best representation of home for usrsquordquo Jaigopal says ldquoAnd it was our mothers What better way than carrying a piece of them with us on the roadrdquoFor their upcoming album Small Town Big Love Little Homes When Chai Met Toast draw visual inspiration from their motherrsquos sarees woven into shirtsThat thought gave birth to Draped in Home a concept where the band transformed their mothersrsquo traditional Kerala pattu sarees into custommade shirts Each piece is unique rich with memory and resistant to the disposability of fast fashion ldquoThese sarees have such exquisite patterns They carry years of memories and legacyrdquo he says ldquoEach shirt is one of a kind Itrsquos unlike anything else anyone is wearingrdquoThe process however wasnrsquot without hesitation especially from the mothers themselves ldquoSome of them were uncertainrdquo Jaigopal admits ldquoOnce a saree is cut itrsquos unusable right So they didnrsquot give us their most precious ones like wedding sareesrdquo Instead the band worked with sarees their mothers were willing to part with focusing on an aesthetic inspired by Panchavarnam mdash the five colours central to Kathakali black red yellow white and greenInterestingly the album itself wasnrsquot conceptualised around ldquohomerdquo from the outset Like most of their music the songs were often born out of travel and distanceldquoA lot of our songs originate when wersquore touringrdquo Jaigopal says ldquoOne of the core tracks Irsquom Coming Home was written in the US when we were really missing home cooking Indian food and just feeling that pullrdquo That sense of longing became a thread that tied the album together Tracks like Dreamland reflect a surreal connection between Kerala and faraway places while Baaton explores finding home in another person ldquoWe realised this was a larger emotion shaping the albumrdquo he addsFor a band that has spent years on the road the idea of home has inevitably evolved ldquoItrsquos no longer just a placerdquo Jaigopal says ldquoItrsquos something we carry with usrdquo While the sareeshirts embody this idea visually his personal definition remains rooted in quiet familiar moments ldquoItrsquos the comfort of being with my parents eating home food having that one corner where I can just sit and readrdquo Yet the emotional weight of the project often surfaced in unexpected ways Jaigopal recalls one saree in particular which is a vibrant blend of green and blue that he fondly calls his motherrsquos ldquopeacock sareerdquoldquoShe wears it on important occasions and I think she looks extremely beautiful in itrdquo he says laughing ldquoI mean she looks beautiful otherwise toordquoWhen Chai Met Toast continues to blur the lines between music memory and identity Their documentary out today on Motherrsquos Day Draped in Home stands out as a powerful statement beautifying the idea of what home means in a life constantly in motion And sometimes it means carrying it on your back thread by thread