We put up all the fortification we could and took all evasive action as dictated by health officials and common sense, alas, only to have the virus invade our family after two and a half years of pursuit. Starting with DH, we fell ill one by one at the end of July. The kids bounced back to normal routine after a week. Us elders however, found it very hard to make a quick comeback.
One week after the virus attack, I couldn't read, I couldn't work on the computer, I couldn't do any housework or gardening. My hands simply itched for something to do, something new, something not strenuous. "Learn tatting!" burst into my mind. What, that old thing? Starting in 2004, how many times had I tried to teach myself the same thing? After failing to learn to tat with shuttles, I put them away and got tatting needles. It was so easy to tat on needles, but all the patterns were for tatting with shuttles. Another dead end.
Not one to ignore my intuition, though, I dragged myself up the stairs to my craft room and searched high and low for the shuttles. I searched all the cupboards and shelves. Na-ah. Before giving up, I opened an old carry-on case in which some odds and ends were stashed, and there they were! They were safely put away in a pouch carefully labelled "tatting shuttles" on the outside.
Now what? I dragged out the tome I had started out with...
I found the rudimentary instructions in the Lacework section and wound the shuttle thread around my fingers and started... only to give up once again because the "flipping" was not working. That's when my intuition shouted, "Check YouTube, you..." (My intuition is usually a well-mannered entity. But sometimes I try her patience.)
So I went to YouTube. I checked out 5 beginners' videos and learned several things from all of them... One showed me the most efficient way to hold and move the shuttle, one showed me exactly how to slack the left hand for the 'flip' to occur smoothly, one showed me the whole process in close up... I bowed to all those teachers in my mind and started tatting. The end results of three and a half weeks of tatting almost half an hour on weekdays looks thus...
Yes, that is most of the "work" that I have created in the past month. As I was in the process of mastering the all-important flip and creating the muscle memory to keep it smooth, it resulted in plenty of mishaps. For example, the one below shows one perfectly executed ring. When I started the other, the fifth stitch refused to flip and I had to stop because of the tight knot.
Then I started making rings and connecting picots, but sometimes got the counting all wrong resulting rings of various sizes...
Then I noticed that sometimes I would get the picot connecting wrong - not collecting the proper thread through the loop or pulling the thread in backwards, resulting in more knots...
Then I managed a string of rings, attached with loops of varying and untidy lengths. I then tried my hand at tatting with size 40 thread, resulting in the teeny little blue ring that you see in the picture below. I found that I would need magnifying glasses to make those. So I desisted, mercilessly unwinding all that thread from the shuttle and throwing it away. Seriously, what had I been thinking when I bought size 40 thread, with my high-myopic eyes? Nope, nothing but no. 10 thread for me!
Then I went back to the RD Book of Needlework and tried out a tiny pattern that required me to reverse my work after each ring and connect the rings in a double row. By this time, I had learned to keep tugging at my shuttle thread to see if was gliding smoothly and caught mistakes long before they spoiled my whole ring. By taking off my specs and squinting at the offending stitches, I also learned to unpick them, correct my mistake, and go on my merry way.
Last week, I tried a shuttle and ball affair, changing between shuttle thread and ball thread and learning to keep them separate. I winged the pattern and created the motif below. I first made the outer circle and then went mad and created a hodgepodge in the inner circle. Just for fun...
But yesterday, I created a motif with two shuttles, again on my own, again unpicking several knots along the way... completely imperfect, but beautiful still...
The picots are not equal-sized. I've created quite a few unintentional tiny picots along the chains, but it is still a recognizable tatted motif. As I've moved along, I've learned to not look at the piece, but my counting needs to improve. It is so easy to transport as well. So now a couple of shuttles, thread, and a small pair of blunt scissors travel in a Ziploc bag with me wherever I go.
I've just learned the basics and there are a lot of things that I have to learn before I can use tatting in projects. But it is a start. And it is so heartening to finally have got through the difficulty of mastering the "flip". Now looking forward to creating things from these patiently waiting books in my collection...
Meanwhile, I have gained enough energy to get the housework done and have started taking care of the garden for half an hour every day. Small bursts of work are okay. But I tried cooking for 4 hours straight last Saturday for DH's birthday, and couldn't move at all on Sunday. But that is how it rolls.
It has been flu fortnight here at Karthi, with DH succumbing first, then Ani, then Kunju and finally the nursemaid who was running around with thermometer, oxymeter, meds, hot water, and tissues. DH was tested for Covid twice and the results were negative, even though we have all the symptoms. Karthi is currently like an echo-cave. The cough starting in one room will set off an echo in several other rooms and go on awhile. But enough of that, let us look at something bright and cheery.
Forever on the lookout out for new attractions in this area, I heard a lot about a craft village on the way to Kovalam. A few years ago we did look in, but the place was still under construction and there wasn't much to see. We thought, "Oh, just another 'government undertaking' to waste public resources." I mean, have you been to any of those state craft emporiums that are horribly designed, where items are displayed haphazardly, and where the staff is so demoralized that they barely open their mouth to talk? And the same products: wooden elephants, plaster Kathakali faces, snake boat replicas, and the metal cornered ornament boxes lined with flimsy red velvet ad nauseam.
Last year, I saw an article about the Craft Village in the newspaper and got good reviews from my sister who went there once. So we went there on Christmas morning in 2021...
Well, well... this looked nothing like the place I remembered! We got there slightly before the opening time – 10 am – and got parking inside the campus. Waiting for the artisans to arrive and open their stalls, we took a little walk and found this wonderful square to relax in...
It was only later that I came to know that the stalls are built around this pretty place. Let me show you just a sample of the things we saw. Starting from Nettippattams of different sizes...
Then chendas and maddalams of different sizes starting from miniature ones that are made with the same materials as those of the original.
Isn't this Kathakali painting beautiful? It's life-size too. Now what if I tell you that it is all made of quilled paper???
You don't believe me? Let us take a closer look...
Just take a look at that detail!!! It took the "quiller" duo of husband and wife around a month to finish this masterpiece!
These stalls are also the workshops of these artists and crafters. According to the space required, there might or might not be separate spaces available for the workshop. For example, the ceramic artist who made these...
has a huge workshop behind the showroom, complete with a potter's wheel. They even hold classes there! Of course, there were the traditional crafts if you have a hankering for elephants and snake boats. Cane furniture and handloom textiles are available as well. But then there are also these...
and these...
These are beautiful miniature replicas of the uru made in Beypore, the ancient ship-building art, brought to life by one of the traditional artisans.
Going into the workshop of a wood craft stall, we were awed by a sculpture in progress that was eight feet tall...
This is a depiction of the Viswaroopa commissioned by a well-known actor and with the addition of a final piece above it, will attain a total height of 11–12 feet. I wandered around the piece and caught sight of Sree Krishna blowing the Panchajanya...
There are scenes from the Mahabharata worked all over the piece. Just look at this Dasavathara necklace! Start from the left top and you can see all ten!
I prised myself away from the wonderful piece of art and craft because there was a lot more to see. Here is a stall of metal craft...
An example of papier mache combined with bamboo...
Macrame hammocks and swings...
I could go on, but then this post would be too long, and I still have to show you the Emporium.
which housed a two-storey tromp l'oeil painting...
Look at how the railing of the top floor balcony is blended into and continued in the painting. We had to have some fun with it, so here is Kunju stepping into the market...
And here is DH waiting patiently for the cobbler to finish his current job...
The Emporium was a veritable Aladdin's cave filled with treasure...
The floor above the emporium houses a painting gallery, of which I will not post photos, but leave you to discover for yourself.
The Art and Craft Village is still expanding with more facilities and attractions to be added soon. The layout of the buildings reminded me of Technopark and the facilities provided are Technopark-standard too—which is excellent for a any institution. There is plenty of space for kids to run around and exhaust themselves while the adults browse through the stalls. It is also elderly-friendly as the stalls are accessible on one floor and there are plenty of places to rest if need be. There is a restaurant on the premises and we would have tried it if we hadn't made lunch plans for the day. All in all, the Village is worth spending at least half a day.
The life of the place are the crafters whose passion fills the spaces that they work in. If you go there, make sure to talk to them about their work, it is simply heartwarming. I have shown a mere fraction of the items available. There are products for pockets of all sizes.
The cost of admission is Rs.100 for adults and half that for kids. Separate fee for parking.
If only that Village was within commutable distance, I would have taken a teeny, tiny stall for crochet and spent the whole day crocheting and nattering with the other crafters!!!
My life in the new year has been like the comic video of Jagathy Sreekumar that was doing the rounds during the first five days of 2022...
I have a planner, I have a habit checklist printed out on an excel sheet, I have reminders on my phone, but when it is time produce something creative, such as a post on this blog, I fall back down, slouch, and then mutter, "I'll do it tomorrow."
Which is not to say that I have been completely idle: being a homemaker and a busy freelance copy editor precludes that.
So let me tell you that one of our new year gifts was not quite apparent at all. As you know, the itinerant cat population at Karthi fluctuates almost everyday (Please check my posts with the label 'Cats' to learn about the ongoing saga). As the local cats know, there is always a bowl full of food left out on our porch, not in plain sight, mind you, but behind a jaali, where a cat in the know can access it if they are courageous enough to climb our front steps. Many a time we have surprised strange cats who, according to the level of phlegm in their nature, have either sped away or casually strolled away after flicking a disdainful tail at our inquiries. Our current, somewhat regular cats, are Pirate and her children from several births, Tukey, Topi, and their elder brother Ellesmere (my original name for this cat was actually Ella, until I discovered, ahem, that he wasn't a she, so I borrowed a name from the Outlander series!)
In the second week of January, we noted a new, disreputable-looking tom cat that came in Tukey's company. Tukey is a half-grown tom cat and we wondered how he could have established a relationship with a strange tom cat. One thing we noticed was that this new cat was not at all afraid of us. He shared Tukey's food and lay placidly on our door mat. We tried shooing him away as we felt he would challenge Ellesmere (who is a fluffy, cuddly, darling who barely tolerates our going silly over him). But the new yellow and white cat didn't scare easily. Two days later, Ani called me to the porch,
"Amma, I think this is Akrami!"
I reached the porch to see the strange cat ensconced in his lap, making no effort to get down.
"Ani!!! You should know better than to cuddle strange cats like that!!!"
"But that's what I meant, Amma! I think it is Akrami. He didn't object at all when I put him on my lap. Would a strange cat let me do that? And look at his front feet, see, those marks look like the injuries he had when the dog attacked him!"
I took a closer look at the cat. He was marked all over with scars of battle and had patches of skin showing through his fur at different places. Especially notable was a slanting slash over one eye that acted as a single eyebrow giving him a sardonic expression.
"I don't think it is Akrami. He has the same coloring, but it can't be him!"
The child who was the closest among us to Akrami wasn't so easily convinced. This is a picture of them taken back in 2016 or so...
He took pictures of the cat on my phone and brought them to me.
"Amma, let us check Akrami's old pictures."
I delved into the Pictures folder on my computer and found old photos and videos, and there it was! The markings were uncannily the same!! The yellow on the new cat was a bit darker and he had clicked pictures of the new cat from only one side. So I asked him to click more to make a thorough check...
As you can see, he was pretty thorough this time, clicked from almost all angles! So we presented our findings in the family council. The council decided that he would have to undergo a battery of tests to see if it was indeed the old Akrami. Till he passed those tests, DH gave him a provisional name: Akrala. The 'la' stood for 'look-alike'.
First we administered the Pirate test. We observed closely when Pirate came. She slapped him within the first five minutes! Akrala thus passed test number one.
We got hot ulli vada from our favorite tea shop. We gave him pieces from a lukewarm one at first. He was not very interested. DH put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and tried again. This time, the cat eagerly fell on the vada and finished off all the pieces! Test number two was passed with flying colors!
He started lording it on our doormat, curling up on it comfortably. That was his favorite pose in his heydays and when Raj came up the front steps, he didn't even open his eyes... Akrala passed yet another test!
He started demanding food from us first thing in the morning, and no cat has been as importunate as that from us except Akrami. Voila, yet another test passed.
Yesterday, I was making dosas when I took a fresh one to the porch and dropped a piece in front of him. He ate it up, looked up at me and mewed. Just like he used to do while asking me for food! I dropped more pieces while DH took care of making the next few dosas. In my heart, I changed Akrala to Akrami in that instant!
Today, while we had our breakfast after giving him his, Akrami was lying on the doormat, pretending that he was lord of all he surveyed. On a whim, I called out, "Akramiiii". He turned his head majestically towards us. I repeated it when he turned away, and he again looked back at us.
Yet another confirmation came this evening. We had saved chicken scraps from lunch for him. Ani gave them to him and we heard him going, "Nomm nomm nomm"!!!!! The very enjoying sounds he used to make when we gave him his favorite food!!!
No doubt there will be more tests and more confirmations. He has changed a lot. He isn't as chatty as he used to be. He is tougher. Then he used to cringe and go away when he was beaten by Pirate, but now, he growls back at her, and she seems to be in awe of her sire, not impudent as of old. He drove off Ellesmere when he came to visit us two days ago, but we are not complaining. DH scolded Pirate when she batted him on the head today because she didn't want to share breakfast with him!!! Just like old times!
To think that if Ani had not been observant like he is... we would have missed our New Year gift!!!
Today, I heard DH making up the story of where Akrami has been for the past two years. It started with "Having eaten two pieces of chicken on Christmas day in 2019 and chatting with my family, I decided to sleep it off on the undercarriage of a lorry." To summarize, the next time Akrami opened his eyes, he was in the border town of Punalur and it took him two years and occasional glimpses and near misses till he made his way back to our home! I must tell DH to write it down some time. Might be a bestseller!
My 2021 reading list stands at book number 112. I almost missed adding the Audible books I listen to during my morning perambulations around Karthi. I sometimes wonder if I walk for the exercise or to listen to the books! Due to the heavy rains of the past month, I have not been able to complete my current Audible book and I look forward to doing it next week.
So here are my favorites from this year, not in order of excellence:
Layla by Colleen Hoover: The first book I read from this author was November 9, which intrigued me because it's the date of my sister's birthday. She has the immense gift of drawing the reader right into the midst of the raw emotions of the protagonists. It is so admirable a talent. I liked Layla because Hoover has attempted a paranormal thriller romance. And it is thrilling till the very end.
A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman: Backman charmed me with the long-winding title of another book: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. Ove is a curmudgeonly gent who is determined to efface himself after his wife's death. He is so crotchety and obsessive that we are tempted to hate him at the beginning of the story. And then the layers are revealed slowly... Beautiful book.
The Lord Wimsey Series by Dorothy L. Sayers: Do you know that this series is available for peanuts on Kindle? I had read most of these books from the public library, not in order, and skipped a few. But on Kindle, they are available in their complete glory. The difference between Sayers' works and her more popular contemporary Christie's works is that Christie's works are a little more of the cookie cutter variety, while Sayers' books are more literary in nature. And starting in the fifth book is the thread of romance between Wimsey and Vane. I wish they were in print today because I would have loved to buy the last three of the series: The Nine Tailors, Gaudy Night and the Busman's Honeymoon. They are worth going back to from time to time for their prose and the picture of England of those times.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: Ezmo the dog has one ambition, to be as human-like as possible. In fact, he would like to take birth as a human being just to be able to shake his friend Denny's hand. Funny, sad, clever, suspenseful... All that you would want in a book.
A Short History of the Girl Next Door by Jared Reck: A YA romance, heart-wrenching. Opening is so simple and trivial, one has no idea how it will punch later.
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa: Another novel in which an animal is a narrator, only in this it is a cat. The cat and his partner travel across Japan, rediscovering a few old friends.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind: The sheer revulsion evoked by the protagonist of this fantasy novel is remarkable. After reading it, I became proud of my anosmia as I would have been immune to the nefarious schemes laid by Grenouille!
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See: Till I read this book, I hadn't known that there were aboriginal tribes of Chinese. Through the life time of a girl from the Akha tribe, the novel covers a wide range of subjects: effects of the One Child policy, attempts to assimilate indigenous people into mainstream culture, child adoption scams, and the overarching story of tea. It was slow-going at the beginning, but I am glad that I persisted.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett: Now here is an author who paints such wonderful word pictures that reading one of her stories is like stepping into a colorful, many-layered masterpiece. The characters stay around a long time after the book is closed. The house is the main character in this story: it repels some, it attracts some, some cannot get out of its magnetic field, some need to get rid of it and some need to acquire it. The dysfunctional extended family that revolves around the house somehow need it to complete themselves.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: If you miss the old-fashioned murder mysteries a la Christie, this is the book for you! A group of feisty seniors in an up-scale retirement home meet on Thursdays to discuss old crimes. But soon enough, they have to deal with murder on their door steps. Red herrings abound and ingenious solutions enlighten. Looking forward to reading the next in the series in the new year.
These are the books I liked the best this year, so far. Other titles that I liked very much:
Zen in the Art of Writing: Ray Bradbury
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird: Josie Silver
The Flatshare: Beth O' Leary
The Winter Garden: Kristin Hannah
Love Lettering: Kate Clayborn
Recipe for a Perfect Wife: Karma Brown
The Housekeeper and the Professor: Yoko Ogawa
Garden Spells: Sarah Addison Allen
A Little Paris Bistro: Nina George
Needlemouse: Jane O' Connor
Ok, I shall stop here for fear of duplicating my 2021 reading list. I can guarantee you that if you pick any one of these, you are in for an engrossing read. Happy reading!
Compared to the photo folders starting from 2002, when we first switched to digital cameras, the one for 2020 is very sparse. Then, to my horror, I discovered that I had even omitted to make a folder for this year - 10 months into 2021! All our pictures are still on our phones and have not been synced. A mistake that I have sought to rectify. Along the way, I saw a few pictures that I wanted to share with you—in no particular order. I've highlighted earlier references to my blog in green. Click on them if you want to read more!
Celebrating my birthday with my sis and nephew (behind the camera) during MBIFL 2020. The last memorable time I visited a restaurant for a sit-down meal, I think.
Row of Ponkala pots waiting for the consecration and a line of devotees waiting for lunch... Last public function/festival attended..
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The streets were quiet, no growling, prowling beasts. So the peafowl chose to cross over from the wildernesses and grace our yard.
My first haircut during the lockdown. Poor Ani was the guinea pig. I had put the trimmer at the longest setting for the back and sides. Unfortunately, Kunju distracted me as I was tapping off the hair on the trimmer and the length went to zero. I kept my head and uttered not one peep when disaster struck in the next swipe. Even while taking this picture, Ani didn't know how his haircut actually looked. It was two days later that he came to me saying, "Amma, I don't know why, but a part of the back of my head feels very prickly." I RAN!!!
My painting helper who made the project a breeze. Very protective of his coiffure, as you can see...
The black and white kitten who grew up into an exceedingly handsome tuxedo cat with white gloves and socks. He was so fond of snuggling that if he was allowed inside while I was doing Sudarshan Kriya or meditation, he would curl up in my lap and lie there the whole time. It helped center me better. He has since disappeared, but we are grateful for all the lockdown cuddles and candid picture moments like this...
Teach a kid to make chappati dough and he will give you this! I screamed when I opened the container to make the chappatis!!!
A picture that I love looking at and a process that I will never, ever repeat! Much as the color gradient is attractive, it was a headache to find books. Yikes!!!
Soaped hands are germ-free. Give soap to a teen with too much time on his hands and...
My coral jasmine making me smile in the midst of the pandemic.
A pair of Indian cormorants nesting in Thekkady, the only trip we undertook in December before things got really bad Covid-wise in Kerala.
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