Handicrafts of India

Dancing on a toe it could either be a crane or this mad man… both in hindsight whiling away time in wait. They smell fresh scents of a new beginning blowing in the air…. Cold is Old!

Gurgling rivers marching down the mountain slopes sound of life sprouting…. there is a reason to dance for both…. hungry, after a long span of stillness… one for fish and the other for the white warm fur …

Laid around in-between seasoned, scribbled, ink stained dark Mahogany planks is a mad king’s broken kingdom…. a hundred small fingers, arms & feet, heads tossed in all directions, buts turned up, boats & elephants and some carved pediments… some half configured, some near completion, some awaiting their spirit… There they lie…. lined up in bottles… some earthy, some glistening, some dark like night… colorful bottles on a remote shelf… kept aside carefully… or so…. to be poured only into the best pieces…. These were Youth, Greatness, Pride, Beauty, Valor, Elegance and another one in some sparkling shade of yellow had no label on it…. he said “it would attract wealth… and I don’t know what to call it”…. Another one kept slightly away was a similar looking jar. It had in it the same yellow glistening potion… and no labels on it … He said “it’s different… not to be mistaken… the mix has a big portion satisfaction… that meets a pinch salt to make Haze … Forgetfulness!…. makes you a dervish… To be used stringently as there is very little left… They all need it at some point or the other…. and I need it more than them…”

Leaving the rhapsody of his secret world in disarray, he steps out to a brighter room… The shop front… where he sits eloquently on the carpeted floor, picks up in his lap a half done garb….needle and threads…. and begins picking stitch by stitch through the lenses of his spectacles…The beauties… “for the beauties walking on the road”…. Barely sitting at the ridge of his nose…the glances….

– – – – – – pick & drop – – – – pick & drop – – – – – pick & drop- – – – –

…………Span after span….. span after span…

Wah! Wah! The meandering threads and how they look decorated only when some bloom is scattered on them… the terrain of my shawls… Pashm! Soft as flakes of newborn snow….white… Kashmir has shown affinity towards… Undoubtedly!…. for the serene elegance it covers everything in… it is cold and soft at the same time…. And in time, the surface lets out what it has always been holding beneath… A bumbershoot of colorful life…. it’s a boon for man for having born through its cold hostilities for so long… A present called Spring… has arrived!

And that’s how man’s perseverance pulls out life from sterility …. budding, blooming… floras….we all are…. on these meandering pathways of mine….

Stravaging along the same meandering pathways he stumbled upon a garden on his left… Intoxicated with the sweet mellow scent… he entered it…

The white almond bloom and the pink cherry blossom…. were talking to the sky… Bees, butterflies, birds only joining intermittently… cross conversations… lending pigments. The zeal had indeed begun to pull out fruits from the thin branches…. turning their faces up in offering….green and raw. Meanwhile, on the ground… squirrels played a squeaky game…. chase was its name… a fusillade of voices motored by their furry tails…. thrown in the air… their’s was a chase for the fallen nuts, trapped in between the meandering of the roots… It was indeed a delightful sight… anyone could loose senses to. And so he thought… “How could anything born out of this stay sane…. the drunkards of this nectar often carry it in their eyes…. they are actually almonds in disguise…”

Fallen on the lush green ground…. in contrast…. their velvety sheen looked stunning…. ” how could anything earthly be so beautiful… the flowers made the sunlight falling upon them look worth its existence…What else does this ball of orange and golden heat rise and fall for everyday…. not to fall upon the ugliness and make it stark…. no, no, no!”

“Sun must rise only to shine upon beauties like these….. ”

And in his silken chain of thoughts he passed off… into a sweet slumber…. for Hours? Days? Months? OR YEARS???…. who knows…. Those deft hands lay discomposed… the threads and the fabric alongside…… And when he finally woke up… he had in his hands, ‘The Garden!’ itself…

He had absorbed it and passed it on in his numbness to the white of the snow like shawl …. The soft Pashmina was indeed a garden of spring now… Radiant & ravishing, with its meandering creepers and gardens of blooming flora along the way…. At its completion however, the man was a bag of mixed feelings…. he did not know whether to love its presence in his hands or to hate its absence around him…. Out of the dream, he thought he had a bigger challenge in front of him now….

“How would I ever find a woman for a garb like this….”

Discombobulated, he rushed to his shop…. and straight to his private chamber… where the broken kingdom lay submerged… only deeper in a layer of dust. This probably was the only time he remembered time ever. Possessed by his previous thoughts he promptly brushed away some broken limbs and heads to make a clear space… Picked up a broken figure and started fixing it…. The doll was ready!… but it was still. Pouring juices of life from his shelf…. one by one, with his impatient patience…. he surely did not measure…and which yellow was it ?!?….“Never mind, both are good!”… though he dripped a few drops extra of one than the other… which one….??…. no one know….

Alive! …. and ready to be planted on the meandering pathways…. there it goes….

A sigh of relief, a drop of sweat… left him… and he left the chamber…

Sitting eloquently on his carpeted wooden floor… blowing puffs of smoke in air…

Dhug……..Dhug….dhug…dhugdhugdddhhugggg…dhgdhh….
Eyes staring out from the frames…
pick & drop…. pick & drop…. pick & drop….
woma fo garb… woma fo garb… woma fo garb…
“Hello!” came a voice…
Face luminous like blazing Sun…
“Salaam!”
“You sure have risen for my spring garden….” Said the Almond eyed man…