Returning from quite tasty but poorly serviced breakfast of lovely hot idlis and slightly stale vadas from HSR high street, we stopped at the ICICI ATM, 100 m from home to withdraw cash - as it seemed to have some. Jiju went inside, and I with my back towards the ATM door, was turning my neck like a camera taking a panoramic shoot from right to left whiling away that short window of time, when I got the perfect ending to the shot at culmination of 180 degree -
Captivating and Accidental. I just kept looking at the simplicity it offered, in contrast to the noise and hustle of our daily activities. It teleported me to some other world - an era where tranquility prevailed, where everything you did was with love, there was time to sip music, and to smell breeze - life was itself a work of art - which you can keep watching for hours and savour.
This mild yellow coloured shop of the different tranquil era had a slanting ceiling - accommodating a staircase to a normal hustling world above it, with a jodhpurish blue shutter as her veil against the dark. A radio kept somewhere near the bottom end of slanting ceiling, played melodious music of bygone times, with breeze flagging away 2 identical over layed pieces of yellow silk cloth being given a new identity of a blouse. A foot step would make the wheel on the side of the machine rotate hurriedly, leading the the thread and it's glossy yellow spindle into a whirlwind spin, reminding me of the intoxicating ball dancy and Salsaique move of leading the lady into transcendent orbits of sama (dervish) spins - feeling The harmony and bliss of unison and freedom. The same foot step puts the needle into a rhythmic motion of a pigeon feeding on the grains.
With his monolithic focus, he turned from the yellow silk blouse to set of 3 other cloths. Started by picking a sweat shirt with a torn seam, which has rendered the sleeve as flat cloth on one side by adventures of a kid. With keen diligence, and moves learned over centuries (by his forefathers) he moves his hands and fingers deftly in coordination, very carefully traversing a crease and at the end very craftily joining the 2 ends, by putting one side of the cloth in the crease of the other side. Puts it on the side. Picks a jeans now with a tag that would have been placed when the customer's needs were acknowledged. Sizes the jeans using his meter tape, marks it using a chalk stone, and with a cut separates a piece of denim. Uses the separated denim piece to re do the bottom cuff of the jeans, by stitching it to the internal side of the Jeans. Puts it aside. Picks up another jeans, and re sized and re cuffed it too. All this with unwavering focus, and an un -wavered clarity of actions, and measurements. With a melodious music of by gone times in background. With the breeze in the air. In the tiny charming mild yellow coloured shop of the different era with a slanting ceiling that accommodated a staircase to a normal world !!
(Towards the last quarter, if you hear carefully enough, you can also listen to the music. Couldn't get the warmth of the sun, and feel of the breeze - to make it real for you)
Somewhere in my memory, I have these memories of those different eras printed with it's characteristic colors, breeze, music, smell, and pace. Which spring alive, whenever a resonating 'set and the setting' presents itself and puts this memory into motion and life - at it's whim. I visited the shop after 2 hours - it wore its blue veil of the Jodhpur's Brahmpuri - and its doors were closed - on it's whim.
