I disgraced myself one afternoon as a child when my grandmother suggested that some female cousins and myself practice making kolam outside on the terrace. When the adults came out a while later to see what we had done, we proudly displayed our handiwork. They had each drawn floral or geometrical patterns in varying degrees of expertise. I had drawn a bus. It wasn’t a bad bus either, by seven-yearold standards. But I was supposed to know that buses were not a fit subject for a kolam. That I didn’t proved my own unworthiness.
My mother knits. She has done so for as long as I can remember, sitting in family gatherings, in waiting rooms, in front of the TV; not actually looking at her needles at all. She says the simple, monotonous action relaxes her, as if it were a form of meditation. To me, it merely appears to involve worryingly intricate mathematical calculations.
No one in my extended family has yet succeeded in teaching me how to knit. We all try to convince ourselves that this is because everyone who’s tried to teach me is right-handed and I’m not, but I suspect it’s really just that I’m bad at it. I really have tried, though.
One of my grandmothers did at one point succeed in teaching me how to sew. Over a couple of months I was subjected to a crash course in various sorts of stitches, and was given various things to hem and embroider.
Now, 15 years later, I can just about hem something.
Or sew on the occasional button. Useful, but not impressive; and if you showed me a dress pattern I don’t think I’d be able to recognise it for what it was.
My grandmothers, aunts, and various other female relatives all read magazines in which women share kolam patterns, knitting patterns and recipes. They’ve been cutting out the better ones for years and storing them in boxes or (latterly) files for the use of future generations. There’s a wonderful sense of female community there, and I love seeing it.
Sometimes I take out one of the files and leaf through it, noting interesting sweaters (to be begged for from my mother) and exciting dishes (that I will probably never attempt) and the like. If I could actually do anything with most of these magazine cuttings, they’d probably be invaluable. Even in their current unusable state (more my fault than theirs) they form a legacy of sorts that I wouldn’t want to part with.
On weekend afternoons sometimes we sit watching cricket on the TV. My mother knits, my grandmother copies patterns from a magazine; I, being unfit for anything else, shell peas. It’s a wonderful, peaceful moment to be a part of, and I’d love to be able to share it more — perhaps knit a scarf, embroider a cushion cover, even design new and wonderful patterns.
But I’d like my bus-kolam to be admissible too.
Aishwarya Subramanian is a student of English literature and a compulsive book buyer. She blogs at http://bluelullaby. blogspot.com
bluelullaby@gmail.com