About six or seven cardboard boxes full of idols arrived in Bangalore with us. Amidst all other engagements, commitments and a high energy 2 yr old , I used up every little block of time I got to segregate the different sets ( some of the sets were in multiples), clean the dolls free of hay( which clung to the dolls) which being a farm product is deemed inadmissible by U.S.Customs. I then packed the dolls in sheets of bubble wrap and secured them with scotch tape. Then these packages were further rolled in little towels, sarees and other pieces of clothing. Since weight not volume is the bottleneck while packing suitcases, it had to be ensured that these bundles would not have a whole lot of room jostling and shaking on their overseas journey. Everytime I tried to get at least a few dolls packed and into the bags, my daughter would wake up prematurely from her nap. Every vegetable vendor, tender coconut seller, courier service worker, kashmiri carpet seller, flower seller, milk man was very successful in waking up this extremely light sleeper. At the end of a few days, my parents, my sisters and cousins got tired of seeing me completely engrossed in this exercise oblivious to all else. One by one my suitcases got packed, my vacation got over and before you could say 'cat in the hat' I was struggling to buckle my aircraft seat belt, tears flooding up my eyes. Every time after a trip to India, I suffer from post-travel depression. A lot of internalizing, a lot of soul searching happens in the days following return.
Why am I here, what am I doing here?
What is all this worth , when my family is so far away?
How long will this 'once in 2 or 3 yr visits' that are barely 3 weeks long, go on?
Everytime I go, I notice more grey hair , more wrinkling in my parents, it wrings my heart.
This time the depression was very acute and lasted much longer than it normally does. The very cold winter spelled more gloom-and-doom , exacerbating my homesickness. After a painful couple of months, life caught up with me.
Months flew by, Navarathri was again round the corner.
The dolls were ready. We went about the task of building a staircase arrangement to display them. A few experienced golu-keepers gave us some loose guidelines on how to go about this, which took us to the lumber section of the store.
A day was spent doing multiple trips to Home Depot and Lowes, some serious discussion on how to build the support for the structure, what wood could and couldn't be cut, what tools we possessed and how much handyman-ness DH could pull off. Some of the discussion was pure humor as we tried to translate our goal into something the salesman could understand.
The vertical pieces of wood on either side that support the horizontal stair between them are called stringers or deck steps.
Us : We don't need something for outdoors, this'll be in our living room
him : you're building a deck in your living room?
some more explanation ensues
Us : It'll be a temporary thing, we'll dismantle this after 10 days
him: You're building a staircase that you need just for 10 days?.
.
.
.
.
Us : It need not be very heavy duty, it's not for people to step on.
him : It's for a pet?
Us : Actually, it's for displaying dolls
him : You're having a sale, uh?
This and more spiced up the otherwise onerous process of evaluating what we needed to build - a staircase that'd just lay against a wall , but not get mounted on it.
It took DH more than a half day to measure and meticulously clamp, screw together and create it.
Part 3 will follow with pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment