As a little girl I used to
watch my aunt embroider pillow-covers, handkerchiefs, dupattas,
baby-dresses, you name it. She seemed tranquil while her hands worked;
because there was such a silent peace about her I found being with her
very comfortable. She would look up, notice me, smile, and look down once
again wordlessly to continue. The smile stayed on her face as she worked
for minutes together. I was enchanted and yet I didn’t know how something
so quiet could appeal to me. On the other hand I was perplexed that she
appeared not to need anybody’s company to continue being happy. She was a
mystery and I found myself gawking at her in admiration. She would keep
her legs bent to support the needlework as she sat on the bed with a
pillow propping her up from behind. Her fingers wove in and out of the
fabric as she sat there creating beauty. I knew she didn’t miss the
laughter and the quarrels of the family because she chose to return to her
room after finishing the kitchen chores on those Thursdays the family
congregated at my grandmother’s home. She always had one more flower to
create, one more bird to complete, one more button to sew. While the
flowers, the birds, the paisleys were pretty I was intrigued instead by
her face. The expression on her face was more tranquil than that of people
visiting a holy place. I stared and tried to comprehend but she was
oblivious to my rude stares and continued embroidering.
Finally one day when I could contain myself no longer I blurted my
question with the bluntness of a curious seven-year:
“Does embroidery give
happiness?”
She looked at my face with
kindness and put her embroidery aside after carefully parking the needle
in the cloth.
“Do you want to learn it?” she
asked. I nodded.
She took me under her charge
and taught me embroidery on small discarded rags. I drew blood a couple of
times before I saw the significance of a thimble. But it was exciting, my
first attempts was a large “L’ for my name on a red rag. I was so proud of
my efforts! She ignored my mistakes and focused on the stitches I had got
right. Sometimes I’d give up when I’d see the mess created by me but she
kept me going with an encouraging, “See that flower, make your next one
like that one, forget the one you didn’t get right, look at the one you
did.”
As I grew up, I neglected needlework so that I could devote my time
sufficiently to more “important” subjects such as Arithmetic and
Geography. Occasionally I would make half-hearted attempts at embroidery
but they all began well but never found completion. I’d push the
incomplete piece of cloth into the back of my cupboard and then forget
about it for months. There was always something more important to do.
Needlework seemed so futile and pointless and what’s more I was told
repeatedly that there was no money in it. My Thursday Aunt continued her
needlework while her niggling and difficult mother-in-law got crankier
with age. It appeared, however, as if she herself had acquired a unique
immunity to invective and insult so long as she could lay her hands on
something to stitch.
My cousins and I would come armed with our slightly tight blouses, our
out-dated dresses, our ill-fitting readymade salwar-kurtas etc to
tuck in or hem up or loosen from the sleeves. The next Thursday they’d be
ready. We were too busy to pay attention to the hard-work and complex
stitching that must have been involved in the mending. All we were
concerned about was that the dress fitted. We’d shout a happy “thank-you!”
to her and leave with the parcel wrapped in an old newspaper and tied with
some wool. She’d smile back and return her eyes to her next job. We’d
remember her only when we had something that needed alteration.
Like the others I grew up valuing time and its utility. I was growing up
to learn that sitting stretched out on a bed with somebody else’s mending
was really for people who have no ambition and no plans. I started seeing
my Thursday Aunt differently. That’s what bums do, what a patsy! I, on the
other hand, was in no mood to be a fool and was in a hurry to move forward
and climb upward.
As soon as I graduated I was offered a job without having made even an
application. I felt successful and felt thrilled. As a Lecturer I took
pains to share my knowledge with the students but was surprised to read
the answer booklets. Their answers certainly proved that most of my
students had understood very little. I wrote detailed remarks and called
them out individually and explained but it had little impact. They seemed
too much in a hurry and they felt it was unimportant what Shakespeare or
Keats said through poetry. They were in a hurry to make it, they wanted to
be engineers or doctors and poetry had little or no relevance to their
goals. One of them was honest enough to tell me that poetry was for losers
and the second-graders of life. I turned away. I wonder why my aunt’s
tranquil face flashed across my eyes at that very moment.
Life has its way of testing all of us through setbacks. I suffered a
setback one day when, through a strange misunderstanding, I found myself
jobless. Despite my attempts to explain my innocence I failed to clear my
name. I felt the pain of being punished for something I hadn’t done. As I
returned home that dejected morning I remembered my aunt’s tranquil face.
While I waited to get another job (which I quickly got in two months) I
took up embroidery with a passion. What better way to wait it out?
It was only when I sat down every morning to embroider that I realized
what I had been missing. As the pattern took shape right before my eyes, I
felt a certain fascination at what the act of embroidery was doing to me.
I felt calm, non-combative, focused and relaxed. While stitching I
recollected how I had got a job without having applied for it and how I
had lost it without having deserved to lose it. I felt a warm blanket fall
around my shoulders. I felt the pain ease. Of course since I was stitching
after so long I drew blood and then I realized that I had forgotten all
about the thimble once again.
While I embroidered I forgot everything. If guests dropped in I waited
impatiently for them to leave so I could return to my haven. As they
rambled on and on my mind wandered away as it tried to figure out how best
to make my embroidery a work of art, a sight for sore eyes. I did hankies
for somebody’s birthday, a cover for our new record-changer. In fact I
must admit that when I saw a button missing on anybody’s shirt I felt
elated. What an opportunity to mend and be happy. It was heaven to be
sitting quietly and doing something creative.
There is a healing power to embroidery that I had missed. Embroidery keeps
the mind engrossed in creation while simultaneously steering it away from
futile and negative thoughts. And because embroidery demands precision it
requires sharp focus at all times.
I came across a story involving embroidery that is worth sharing:
“When I was little, my mother
used to sew a great deal. I would sit at her knee and look up from the
floor and ask her what she was doing. She’d inform me that she was
embroidering. As from the underside I watched her work within the
boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand, I
complained to her that it sure looked messy from where I sat. She would
smile at me, look down and gently say, "Son, you go about your playing for
a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my
knee and let you see it from my side." I would wonder why she was using
some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so
jumbled from my view. A few minutes would pass and then I would hear
Mother’s voice say, "Son, come and sit on my knee." This I did only to be
surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower, or a sunset. I could not
believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy. Then Mother would
say to me, "My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you
did not realize that there was a plan on the top. It was a design. I was
only following it. Now look at it from my side and you will see what I was
doing."
When things go wrong we are
convinced that they were meant to stunt and deform us if not to destroy us
altogether. However as life unfolds we go from opportunity to opportunity
and begin to understand that the cruel blow was really a blessing in
disguise. Embroidering helps us forget unfortunate events, stop moaning
and instead involve ourselves in an act of creation. A thing of beauty
stands where only bootless cries would have been. And finally, from the
tangled and messy other side we can soon see that ugly things might
actually be beautiful if seen right side up.
My Thursday Aunt is still mending and stitching other people’s clothes.
Her gifts are embroidered pillowcases and initialed hankies. But to me
they mean much more.
Boloji.com is owned and managed by
Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
