Good news comes in twos

Dear Friends and Readers,

I hope you've been well and healthy. 

The year 2020 seems to have played a trick on us. Every time I write a blog post, it feels like I'm near April somewhere. How could I be looking at the beginning of November already? I'm not complaining. As a matter of fact, I'm here to share two tasty pieces of treat i.e. good news with you. But before I do, a little preamble to how the news came about.

As you may recall, this year's A to Z Blogging Challenge took me down memory lane where I met my grandparents: Beji and Papaji. Some of the posts I wrote introduced you to them and their love of land and food and their devotion to us, their grandchildren. I chose to call myself a princess in one post and Artemis in another. What they call pride/hubris in the real world is known as imagination in the land of stories, right? Those posts were received with so much love and appreciation that when a call for stories for an anthology of feel good stories rang out in these parts, I rewrote a post into a short story and sent it.

Guess what? It got picked! And the book was launched on the 28th of October 2020! Miracles do happen. I'm sharing all the links. I'm not getting paid or anything but half the money raised from the sale of the book will be used to support an animal charity called 'Prani, The Pet Sanctuary' in Bangalore. I think it's a win win. My dream of seeing my work in print is helping to support a charity. What more could I ask for? I'm happy:) 

You can read 'Kingdom of Kitchen' and 27 other stories in the collection.

Presenting: Tea With a Drop of Honey by the Hive

India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08LCQK8WW

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LCQK8WW

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08LCQK8WW

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08LCQK8WW

Please leave helpful reviews if you can.

Covidkaal (the Covid Times) brought out another passion of mine to the fore. It happened by chance. And once again, it's thanks to the A to Z Challenge of 2020 where I met a kind soul and my namesake, Arti of my space who introduced me to online open mic sessions. One thing led to another and I found myself reading out my stories on zoom calls and Insta live sessions in June and July. By the time August rolled in, I had even started 'performing' poetry! It felt like I was back in school, on stage, debating and reciting. The thrills and chills felt exactly like they'd done more than 3 decades ago.

Then, last week, someone I'd met online on one such session asked me to send him some of my work and informed me that he hosts Mirchi Scribbled, a poetry/spoken word/storytelling platform affiliated to a well known radio channel in India called Radio Mirchi. He liked the pieces I'd sent him.

Artemis was back -- she even did a little victory dance to celebrate:)

When a piece was picked and okayed, I took it with me on my morning walks, sat with it under our neem tree and let the words that were written on a laptop screen become one with me.

Then last Friday, the husband and I teamed up to shoot a video of my poetry recital. I wore a grey Coimbatore cotton saree with a gorgeous black and mustard border, my favourite Kali locket, a pair of jhumkas and a big red bindi. I was ready.

We should be done in an hour, tops. I figured. We'll eat lunch after.

Two and a half hours of forgetting a line, knocking the phone off its stand, forgetting to push the record button, loo breaks, umpteen emptying of full glasses of water in single gulps followed by more loo breaks later, we agreed to stop and send the best recording we'd managed thus far. Lunch couldn't wait any longer.

Thanks to Parth Vasani of Mirchi Scribbled who did a stellar editing job, our amateur attempts at recording look pretty neat.

Presenting, my debut performance:

So, that's all folks.

I know Covid Times have been tough but all this sequestering has been like a hatching for me. I'm the egg that's had enough time and warmth over the last six months to crack open tiny parts of my creative spirit from the safety of my nest and peek out a little.

Wishing you a wonderful Halloween if you celebrate and a magical weekend if you don't.

It's a very special full moon tonight. Do go out (if it's possible and if the skies are clear) and let the Moon bathe you in her moonlight.

I owe all the above to the world of blogging and to the A to Z Challenge this year. And to you my dear friends and readers.

Thank you.

Love and prayers,

Arti

A Thank You note: to the lookout journal

If you've been a part of this blog's journey, then you would've noticed the long silences.

The past six months have been a jumble of thoughts and emotions. The novelty of empty nesting refuses to wear off and I find that I'm so preoccupied with 'what's next' that I'm not doing anything now.

For the first time in three years, the A to Z blogging challenge has stood out of reach. I was sure I'd be ready for it and then when the last day of March turned into the first day of April, I realized I wasn't.

I'm at an intersection of so many plans and ideas that choosing the 'one path' is proving tricky.

There's a new camera to get familiar with.

Then there's a voluntary pursuit that started off as an art therapy session at a hospital four months ago. But it has evolved into a promise of an art exhibition in the very near future.

And the freedom of an empty-nester combined with the blessing of rebate air tickets has meant frequent travels out of Doha.

Also, as with any creative pursuit, long rest periods can develop into breeding grounds for self-doubt and laziness. 

As a result, this quarter has been busy but without any blogging.

So, when the lovely duo at the lookout journal, Anusha and Vangmayi, showed interest in a proposal I sent them, I was thrilled.

This was a first for me. To write a piece for a journal. To work with edits. To look at my writing from an editor's point of view. To say what I wanted to say but not say it in so many words. To be happy with snips and corrections.

I'm utterly grateful to the duo at the lookout journal for making this easy and enjoyable for me.

Here's the link. Have a read. Tell me what  you think. Share it if you'd like someone else to read it too.

of saris, goddesses and the common woman

I hope I can come back to regular blogging soon. I miss it for sure. It's time to make time and find the focus. 

Thank you for reading my words.

Have a wonderful day.

T is a for Tales of Tailors #AtoZChallenge

If you are a saree lover/wearer, by the time you finish reading the title of today's post, your memory machine would've started churning a mini series of tailor related sagas of your own. You may have already switched off by now and started planning the title of your tailor memoir and the only way I'll be able to get your attention back is if I show you pictures or photos of beautiful sarees. Hang in there, just a few words to read. There's a picture. I promise.

For the non-saree wearer who's going uhh?, let me elaborate.

Sarees are worn with blouses and blouses are stitched by tailors.

To elucidate the importance of a tailor in a saree wearer's life (or actually any person's life who gets his/her clothes stitched by a tailor, especially in the Indian sub-continent), I'm borrowing this quote from life_in_a_saree, an Instagrammer I follow:

"Saree lover proposes, tailor disposes."

Yes sir. That's the power tailors wield in the lives of people who go to them to get their saree blouses stitched.

Looking at the picture below: do you notice anything unusual?

No. Not the dusty leaves of frangipani (note to self: wash leaves before clicking pics)

No, not even the oddity of a saree blouse hanging out in the garden with flowers. 

Have the observant among you noticed that the colourful scooters are all up-side down?

My trusted tailor obviously didn't.

"Master ji (usual term to address tailors as they are masters of their craft!), is my blouse ready?" I called my tailor last Thursday to find out about a blouse that was supposed to have been ready two Tuesdays ago: if you believed the date written on the collection receipt. 

Anyone, who's had anything to do with tailors will tell you that the date of collection on the tailor's receipt is as elusive as Yeti. You get a general idea, a teaser of a trail but you NEVER find your finished piece on that day. 

That's the day you start your follow up ritual with your tailor with phone calls and visits. With kind requests that slowly ferment into threats. If the tailor is very good and he has achieved celebrity status among your circle of friends, then the threats that have fermented inside you don't usually come out of your mouth. They just boost your acidity. Your rage simmers silently inside you. You call him in your sweetest voice and plead, "Masterji, jaldi keejeya na." Please hurry, Masterji. You have NO access to consumer rights if he messes up, so you don't want to upset him, you see.

If he's not that great and you're only trying him out, then you're not so invested for you've given him an old piece of cloth which was an unwanted gift that had been lying in your cupboard for so long you'd almost forgotten about it. Chances are the 'trial' tailor will call you on the date of the receipt and remind you to collect your blouse that's ready. 

And after you've recovered from the shock of that call, you'll wonder why you didn't pursue a career in genetics and human biology. You could've mixed Masterji's skill with the new chappy's work ethic and got yourself a perfect tailor.

ONLY in dire emergencies, like marriages etc. do these Masters deliver on time--and that too if their kaarigar (worker) is not celebrating Eid, Diwali or Durga Pooja. 

So when I called him for the third time in the two weeks after the due date, he sounded as masterful as ever,"Yes, madam....it's been ready for ages...why haven't you collected it ?"

I know better than to point out to him that just yesterday he'd given me a five minute long list of excuses about why it wasn't ready. 

I played my 'lie that's not really a lie' card (I'm sure my females friends will understand) and said, "But I have nothing to wear to dinner tomorrow!"

Thursday morning: I went. I paid. I got home. I took out the blouse. I tried it on. Something wasn't right.

Don't say it. Do NOT point to the print please.  

"But that's for children..." the surly salesman at the shop in the souq had pointed out to me when I had asked him to cut out half a meter for me, a few months ago. 

"I'm a child." I declared to counter his surliness. 

His surliness did not twitch even a tiny bit. 

I'd fallen for this colourful print and I couldn't wait to get it made into a saree blouse to welcome the hot Doha summer with.

So, when I got home last Thursday and tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror, my heart sank!

The front of the blouse looked like a scooter junk yard (with all those up-side down scooters.)

The back, however, looked exactly like how I'd imagined it: cheerful. A colourful reminder of Gregory Peck in  Roman Holiday.

The quandary I find myself in is that I bought this fabric almost six months ago. The surly salesman may have sold the rest of it to children by now. Well, I will have to go back one of these days to check. 

Why go through this drama? You'd be right to ask. 

There are many ready-made options available. In fact, I've worn sarees with shirts and tops, like so many people now do. So, it's not that there aren't any options. There are. But, there is something about seeing a print or a fabric and using a master's skill to turn it into a happy garment.

If tailors give us tales of woe, they also turn fabrics or things into wearable works of art.  

A few months ago, while clearing out my wardrobe, I came across a bag my sister had given me almost 25 years ago. It's from Kutchch and I love the earthy, hand-embroidered beauty of it. I hadn't used it for so long. An idea occurred.

The bag is now a blouse:)

You can see now why I keep going back to my master ji:)

A promise is a promise. So sharing a saree picture. 

This gorgeous grey was bought from PSR Silks in Coimbatore in July 2017.

It's a Coimbatore cotton saree with a woven black, mustard and red border.

Photo was clicked by husband.

I was not really ready for the shot, but I like the click:)

Have you ever had a testing time with tailors?

Any tales you'd like to tell?

For the love of Sarees

"Who took out clothes from my cupboard?" our mother's voice carried the threat of a severe telling off, perhaps even a whack.

Seema and I froze in our tracks, or more like in the act of finishing off a Social Studies or Science homework while sitting at the dining table.

We looked at each other like Scully looks at Mulder in X files: baffled and amazed at how did she know?

How did our mother know by just opening her cupboard door that we'd been in it? What are these extra terrestrial powers that our mother possesses? I often mulled over it but never cracked the mystery until I became a mother of children old enough to take things out of wardrobes and cupboards. Like a Ninja with extra sensory powers, I can suss out if my wardrobe has had a looking into by my children. Even if all they've done is opened the door and shut it--I know. How?

Mothers know. They just do.

"Switch on the light before you go blind in the dark." came the next missile from her room to our ears.

Her words bore evidence of her rising temper.

We knew our mother's temper and we didn't like to see it ever, but we often did. And that was that.

I pushed my chair back and flicked the white electric switch on. The tube-light blinked a couple of times before it decided to shed its light to us. We sat, Seema and I, in the fluorescent light, waiting for more missiles to reach us. We were nine/ten or ten/eleven years old at the time.

Evening Arati (prayers) sounded out on the loudspeaker of the temple near our house. It was Wednesday. The time was a little after seven pm. Less than an hour for Chitrahaar to start.

We had to be really, really good and really, really fast. We had to make sure we could watch TV at 8 without any of Mummy's daant dapkaar (telling off) interfering with our mid-week TV mazaa (joy).  She was really, really upset we'd messed up the neatly folded petticoats and blouses in her cupboard. We'll have to worry about the silk sarees which Seema and I had tried on and kept back in the trunk in the store room with extra care and precision, using the fold creases as guides, later. The cupboard situation had to be dealt with now before we lost the half an hour of TV magic--the only mid-weak television we were interested in when we were growing up. No, we never complained about our limited viewing options. We felt privileged to enjoy this mid-week treat.

Too many choices make us whiny.

"Mummy, shall I make the rotis now or when Daddy comes?" One of us extended the olive branch.

Our mother kept a very clean and tidy house and even cleaner and tidier cupboards. Any infringement upon her neat and tidy kingdom was dealt with appropriately: i.e. severe telling off while the songs of Chitrahaar were on. She never took away our TV privileges. Funny! Perhaps it never occurred to her.

We were her obedient and submissive subjects. We, too, liked to keep the house in order and our cupboards tidy. But we also liked to raid her cupboards and trunks and try out her sarees when she left us home alone to go to the market or to visit friends and family. But we always put everything back as neatly and as precisely when we were done dressing up. How she figured out our trespasses when she got back home was a mystery to us.

Our saree soiree would start as soon as we heard the clink of metal on metal--metal latch closing shut on metal gate--announcing Mummy's departure. Safe and free for a couple of hours, we'd pull out a couple of her sarees and start. Sometimes, when there wasn't much time, we'd forgo the petticoat and just tie a naada (drawstring) around our waists and start tucking.

We had a few favourites: the Coca-Cola Banarsi silk with silver butis (flowers) and a silver woven border, the Grass Green Japani (I don't know what the fabric was, but we knew it as Mummy's Japani saree) with white leaves embroidered into it, the Yolk Yellow silk with a hand painted border and my absolute favourite--the Multi-Coloured Chiffon with Sequins. That saree had the potential to zap me into a princess. "One day soon, the people of my kingdom will come looking for me and plead for me to come back."
Fantasy?
No. Simply, saree magic.

We would lose ourselves in her sarees. Time would stand still and evaporate suddenly. Like a sparkle of sun on still water, we'd be mesmerized by her sarees and just like that--in a blink of a sparkle--it would be time to wrap up: tidy away all evidence and resume whatever we were doing before the interlude so that when Mummy got back home, she'd think we had been doing homework etc. for all the time she'd been away.

The mistake we had made on this occasion was that we'd forgotten it was Chitrahaar day, so there was no time for her to cool down! Lesson learnt for future raids.

Sarees are time machines.

Every time I drape a saree, the exact moment of its purchase, the place I bought it at or the person who gave it to me as a present or bought it for me, emerges like a pattern. It wraps me in its threads of memories and the feelings I'd experienced that first time I'd laid my eyes on it: thrill, joy, love cocoon me for the rest of the day. Ask any saree lover. They'll tell you.

Yes, a saree is a time machine: soft as cotton, smooth as silk, fluid and graceful and liberating and yet holding within its folds that first moment in time when humans created a piece of cloth to drape their bodies. A saree is, after all, just a piece of un-stitched cloth.

Sungudi sarees drying on parched Vaigai in Madurai

The year was 1992. I was twenty-one and poor, trying to make ends meet. I had graduated from Delhi University less than a year ago.

I'd found a job. A good job with a poor salary.

British Airways (India) was holding a long drawn selection process to interview, re-interview fresh graduates for employment. I had applied. If I got the job, my salary would multiply by four! I'd become non-poor. I was very excited. But BA's selection process was never ending: it had taken eight months already.

Currently, my meager salary covered the rent (as that had to be paid at the start of the month) but ran out before the month was over. So food bills dwindled to basic bread and milk for the last week of every month.

My friends'  homes became my weekend refuge where their mothers would feed me yummy home cooked (Punjabi or Kannada) food at the weekends. I wasn't starving but I didn't have the extra cash to source a new outfit for each new round of interview/group discussion BA (India) deemed necessary for us to clear just so we could prove our worth. This was India in the early nineties. It wasn't easy to find a well paid job as a graduate. It's even harder now.

Every round I cleared seemed like a miracle. I dared to dream of having enough money to eat well on all the days of the month.

Then I received a letter informing me that I had one LAST interview to attend. The panel would consist of BA's top shots.

I had to dress to impress. My work wardrobe of khaadi kurtas and jeans wouldn't work. I had manged to buy a really lovely indigo salwaar kameez in Kamla Nagar from a pataree waalla (sidewalk hawker) for 120 rupees for my previous interview. AND it had worked. They wanted me back for another interview. BUT, I had no more money to spare.

I was at Anu's house the weekend after I received the letter and I was, as usual, trying to figure out what to do. Perhaps, borrow a saree from aunty (her mother). I had borrowed a gorgeous Mysore Silk from Asha's mother a few months ago for a preliminary round of interview. Borrowing was certainly an option. Things always have a way of working out.

"Tu chal mere naal." You come with me, said Anu's mom.

"Kahan?" I asked.

Aunty was already at the door.

"Bachhee ka interview hai--achchee see saree mein jayegee, aisi thoina bhejoongi apnee betee ko."
My child has an interview. She has to go looking her best. She's my daughter after all.
Said aunty as she pulled at the glass door of the handloom shop in Karol Bagh.

She chose a beautiful Carrot Pink (gaajjaree) Bengal cotton saree for me. She bought blouse material from a tiny shop nearby and lent me her petticoat.

Anu and I were in college together. Aunty (Anu's mom) was an educator and a widowed mother who had to manage her finances very, very carefully to ensure her three children got the best education India had to offer. She didn't have spare cash lying around. She had an extremely generous heart.

Aunty died after a long period of Alzeihmers' a few years ago. In the busyness of career and children, I didn't visit her as often as I should have.

But, even today, her saree wraps me in her warmth. I can see her twinkling eyes and taste the gobhi ke paranthe she used to make on Sunday mornings. The time machine of her saree takes me back to Karol Bagh in 1992 and I can hear her throaty chuckle as clearly as the day she paid the bill for a pink Bengal cotton so that I could go for an interview feeling my best.

******

I'd love to hear your favourite saree/garment  memories. So, If you're willing to, please share. And I'll share images of these beautiful women I've had the pleasure of exchanging smiles, laughs and stories with on my recent travels in India.

She hitch-hiked a (bullock cart) ride with us in Tanjavore.

She'd worked all day at a construction site and was making her way back home.

It's a hard life. She works to support her children so that they can get a good education.

And still she smiles.

Ma Saraswati drapes her favourite white and plays the veena in Brihadeeswarar temple, Tanjavore.

Rural folk don't waste time. They are quick to smile and even quicker to talk to you. And this group of ladies (from Andhra Pradesh on a pilgrimage to Brihadeeswarar) demanded that I take their pictures and show them the results on the display screen. 

"Stand straight!" I felt that's what was being said by the leader--I wouldn't know. 

I don't understand Telugu.

I was just very, very happy to follow instructions:)

Don't miss the little fellow on the right...how adorable is he?

They drew me into their smiles and colours and as I type this, I beam with the memory of those moments shared with strangers. 

Strangers?

Such a pretentious word that is.

Connected. All of us. Just open up and see.

 Anklets and Kasavu (a traditional off white cotton saree from Kerala--with a gold border)

Madras check and jasmine in hair.

Marwari ladies who've adopted Tamil Nadu as their home and speak fluent Tamil.

I asked and they agreed to be photographed.

Meenakshi Temple, Madurai.

The year 2017 started with a trip to Kutchch and it continues to colour me in all shades of India. I'm loving it and for the sake of saree lovers among you, I will put a post together about where-to-shop-for-sarees-in-India, soon. 

And while the weaver dreams of new patterns to weave on his loom...

I'd like to wish you all a life full of colour and warmth and light and love.

And as we celebrate Shakti,

I pray:

 May all of our days be Dusshera.

And all our moments reminders:

of the victory of good over evil,

of humanity

and 

of peace.

Thank you to all the goddesses who've been my life's blessings.

Photos taken at Dakshin Chitra, Chennai.