Dyeing Silk

Continuing with the theme o  Thailand, let us look at some color pics...First published on January 1, 2015, --here it is again.  Also partly because I have recently discovered two vloggers who are quite popular for documenting their 'country life'.  Please check these out. PS: I know neither of them, but want to share their work.  Absolutely delightful. 

The Chinese Girl

The Cottage Fairy

As for this post, its a sweet reminder of my love for Asia and its colors.  

Thailand, 2012

Thailand, 2012

Dear Readers:  Its been busy, and to sit and think has been hard, since my day job requires me to read and write extensively.  So to catch up, there will be several images, that should have gone up a while ago anyway.  So the above pictures are from 2012, taken in Bangkok, Thailand.  I love the colours of Asia, but another thing that Asia is famous for is silk.  Here you see a man stirring the cauldron, that is used to dye silk. The natural color of silk is off white.  Often Khadi (handmade) silk in India or Tussar silk usually keeps the fine lumps of thread in the material to give it a raw look. In all other cases silk is smoothened to give a more shiny look, which is how it is often known outside of Asia.  Like Gold, Silk is both the produced and consumed in the largest amount in Asia. 

Ordinary People Like Us!!

Last published on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014, ORIGINALLY pubished in 2013--actually from 2012...here it is...This one of my favorite posts. 

Handmade mats, and the salesman.  Mr. Kind Smile.  Bangkok, Thailand, 2011

Originally, published on January 13, 2013----!!

What you see on the table are handmade mats.  They are made from scraps of fabric.  Nothing is wasted in developing countries. At least not yet. And in their dearth of material goods, they have also become quite creative in using the left overs.  There are numerous recipes for the left over food. One of my favorite from India is to use the left over vegetable curry and knead it into the morning dough.  So the chappatis are flavorful.  Or another one, take the dry vegetables cooked the night before, and stuff them into breakfast paranthas (shallow fried bread).  Ofcourse, we can make sandwiches from the left over potato (dried) curry.  

But I seriously do not think that it is ‘(just) the lack of having the material that makes us in Asia creative with everyday life.  I think it is civilization.  Because people have lived long (in these places) before modern technology and throw away culture arrived.  

The basic organizing principle of the lives (in developing countries) remained the same for centuries.  Let us create something.  So, the girls were knitting sweaters or sewing dresses.  Even making their own shoes.  Ofcourse there was cooking, and preserving, and maintenance of the house.  For boys, it was carpentry, knowing electricity and electrical gadgets, or automobiles.  And there were always new ways of doing things.

The trend was the same in many of what we call the ‘developed countries’ today.  Even in the US.  But the US, must have been one of the first countries to be heavily industrialized...before it could develop a deep culture around ‘home and hand made’ goods.  That disrupted its culture of creating things at home early on.  Today, in developed countries creativity often involves making films, digital media, and other activities related to computer.  

What of creativity/construction that can be applied to our daily lived experience, food, clothes, etc. In the developed countries, we have outsourced our daily living .  The smell of bread being baked only comes from bakeries.  Or rarely comes from homes.  We do not go to the local dairy to get the milk in glass bottles, where we must pass through fields smelling of animal excreta---instead pick up our choice of milk from the local grocery store--that is clean, odorless and very sterile.

In a sense we move from individual to ‘generic’.  That is why I always had issues with this idea of ‘individual’ culture of the west.  I think it is more generic.  Everyone wears clothes bought from stores, not home made or sewn by family tailor.  The food they eat often comes from boxes.  There is little concept of preserving, picking, juicing, unless done for special diets.

I will have to write a separate entry on my memories of food being preserved, throughout winter, so we could taste it in summer.

It was still fresher than the ones we get in cans....and it had a personal-family touch....

Back to the above picture.  I had seen this young man in 2009, on my visit to Bangkok.  But when I saw in 2011, I recognized him right away.  Ofcourse, he did not.

I clicked a picture with his permission.  And spent the next ten minutes chatting with him.  All the time, wondering if he can fill his stomach on what he makes by selling those handmade mats?

May be he has other ways of living, may be he deals with drugs, may be he is a recovering alcoholic...you know all these things we are told about the people who make a living by setting up street stalls?  They live on the margins.  In reality, may be he is married, with children, and his wife makes these while he set up stalls in different places through the week to maximize on his sales.

We will never know!

But whenever I see them, and whenever I have enough time to stop and talk to them....I do..and bow to them silently, for among all the ills they may be associated with, they are merely trying to make the best of their circumstances from the information and opportunities they were given and the wisdom they gathered--just like the  most of us!!  

Life, Living, Lemon & Liquorice .

I have started to dry orange and lemon peels. I use them in soups and curry. Sometimes in fried rice. I saw that in a cooking show.  It has definitely added a unique flavour to Indian cooking. 

Although I have been professionally productive, the last few years have been both ultra productive and super confusing.  

No amount of work seems enough. 

I have never applied for promotion, mainly because I do not care about it.  I complain about it.  But I do not care about it.  I complain because that is a marker in the world. Of success.  Mine is invisible in many ways. Or visible to those who know me at the heart level. 

Ever since I was a child, I have --consciously or subconsciously tried to 'storify' eveyrthing.  I put stories around academic papers, in poems, in newspaper articles and in class lectures.

Even when I was preparing for pre-medical exams, finished four years of college, taught math, moved to Africa, & then decided to move to the US--I was thinking and writing stories.  Never finishing most of them, just weaving stories and writing sentences.  So thinking of choosing a degree in media came easy, even though I had many interests. 

I remember clearly -as if it was yesterday--asking myself if I was making the right decision in choosing media, rather than Food and Nutrition or Textiles and Design or Child Psychology.  The subjects that had caught my interest during my first degree.  I loved so much about them.  I even got an admission in a program to be a dietician. 

But telling stories was a passion.  I wanted to take that chance.  I chose a degree in 'Communications' thinking it was a film program.  It was enough for me that the university had a television station.  That meant I could practice story telling skills, then audio-visual way. 

I must say studying communications it has not paid off. Except I learnt the basics of editing, first on VHS then on digital media. Media studies is infested with Marxist studies and it has worn me down.  Academic articles, which I have taught myself to write, do not really have that great an impact --not most of them. 

I did well in MSc.  Excellent grades, and good output. 

Finished in time, had 12 graduate credit more than required.  And then began the troubles.  Some troubles I talked a lot about.  And yet there are things that some of my closest friends do not know. 

I had graduated with an MSc in instructional technology.  The jobs were only for writers of manuals or creators of training programs.  While after temping and volunteering and evening side-work, I got one, & I performed at a stellar level in the first 6 months and then it was downwards from there.  I was now heading into my late twenties, & not sure of what I wanted or where I was heading.  I wanted a family and children for sure and a community.  But those two years of life the city I had moved about 7 times.  Let me say that again SEVEN. I used to drop my two suitcases and two bags and a few boxes in the back of a car and ask the driver to take me to the next destination.  Why such a move? I could not afford an apartment or its lease.  So I lived on monthly leases.  Often times I moved to get closer to my new job.  I temped for the first few months, then volunteered and did odd jobs for another few months and then got a full time job. The full time job paid less than the minimum requirement for someone who was at my education level.  The job required long hours and was about 2 hrs away from where i lived (count two metro changes & a bus and about 7 minute walk).  Eighteen months after graduating with an excellent GPA, hoping town and cities --living in the tri-state area, DC, Maryland and Virginia-- I was disoriented.

But it would take me years to recognise the pain it all had caused me. 

I was ready to return home.  The only thing was there was a fear I was too old. Yes you heard me right. I was in my 20s and thought I was too old. As I have said before, my mid-life crisis came at 18.  My sister joined me that year and I thought I would begin a new life.  But again, in the US....having a family five states away does not help.  Would take me years to recognise that. 

From there I joined a PhD.  But the problem was that I was still thinking of making movies and writing stories. I talked about it from the very beginning.  But had little guidance.  Stuck on visas did not allow me much choice either.  With visa restrictions, i was not allowed to make money, other than what I was there in the country for. 

Oh the things I would tell my younger self!!

So, since I am short on time, I will just summarise what I am trying to say. 

That we live in times where life does not take a straight route.  People who thought they would be married don't get there, those who get married may not stay married, those who want to be parents may not be loved by their children as much, those who get educated feel it is all empty after a while. 

What we have is the present moment and the ability to give our best ini the present moment.  Nope, I am not one of those folks who thinks that the past does not matter.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I think the past does matter. 

It shapes the present. 

But present is where we can forget the past.  Choose to forget the past.  And shape the future.

Present is where we can take messes of our lives and start living.  Present is where we can take the lemony, sour and tangy experiences of our life and flavour them with liquorice...

That part of flavouring can be done in (your mind) the past and in the future too. 

But you can ONLY taste it in the PRESENT. 

(I need to live this way, I have too much baggage and too much pain of why I think I am not that successful.  I always wonder why I have had such a great life.  And yet such a peripatetic life.  But if I am honest, its been good, not conventional, not easy, but good.  So, let me repeat, more to myself than to the readers. But you can ONLY taste it in the PRESENT.)

The taste of a good life, MUST be in the present.  If life has to feel meaningful. 

PS: If you wish you can read this article about meaning of life -or meanings in life

As the article says: Life matters because we exist within and among living things, as part of an enduring and incomprehensible chain of existence. Sometimes life is brutal, he writes, but meaning is derived from perseverance. The Tao says, “One who persists is a person of purpose.”

India in Snow

 

Temple, in the north of India. Just look at the colors, the light and ofcourse the curtain of a mountain behind it all, reminding us, how small we are. 

Doesn't it look like a train headed to hogwarts? Well, this is India.  North of India.  Picture from twitter, 2021