Art and craft

 Art and craft

We took the morning bus to the town. It was so much fun to wait for the bus to come. We started getting ready on seeing the bus go up to ayampeti. It would take a while for it to get back to our station i.e VOC nagar stop. I believe the bus would go to ayampeti, stop there for a while,  may be the driver would go for a Tea and then take a round about at the ayampeti railway station to make it's trip back to trichy town sathram stand. I have had my brother say that the ayampeti railway station is small and trains do stop there. Anyway there was enough time for us to get ready, lock our house and walk up to the main road VOC stop to wait for the bus. The bus came rambling towards us cutting through the smoke and puff of sand dust it created as it ran through the mud road. The mud main road was on a high bunker stretch by the uyankondan canal. I often feared that vehicles speeding on this bunker mud main road would shoot off the road into the canal. Uyankondan canal I heard from our neighbour uncle was infact a big tributary of cauvery river which had dwindled down with silt. I also remembered an event of a dismembered dead body floated in the canal. All said, it was a thrill to get on to the bus at the VOC Nagar stop by the uyankondaan canal . We had walked up to the stop and as we waited on the slope down from the bunker mud main road, thangachan aunty walked out of her house. Thangachan uncle's  house was just next to the bus stop. She with her smiling face , enquired "engotta ammayum molum" ? Thangachan aunty had three sons and must have found it amusing to see a mother - girl child combo gallavanting around. Anyway the combo got onto the bus and made its way to the town. We got down at main guard gate and made our way through the fort gate, onto the teppakulam main road. Not far off on the teppakulam main road way before rockfort temple we reached our destination.  Chella stores.  It was a relatively old store, housed in an extension  of a victorian style architecture building which had chinthamani. I remember frequenting chella stores almost everytime we were in mainguard gate to get some little item or the other for amma's art and craft. Amma loves art and craft. It was some little magic with her small made hands. Amma was way shorter than me,  small made. I loved her small cute short fingers which had some roughness and ruggedness about it. Those hands which served me food and at the same time cleaned to a sparkle our home , washed -ironed our clothes, ploughed our kitchen garden , watered the plants which included the wild rose garden, the grape vine , the coconut trees, the shrubby lemon tree, the madly fruit laden guava trees, the banana tree, pasili keerai wine which was in a panthal and of course daddy's fancy the guava- apple hybrid plant. She also bathed and combed our little pomoranian goofy to his impeccable pristine white soft form. Goofy was a beauty. As if it was all not enough the same hands wanted to adorn our home with her art and craft ! May be I could have shown her what she has been up for. How her life was consumed in our home making. Anyway steering back to our art and craft crusade to chella stores, we bought our stuff - some coloured velvet papers, glittery coloured chamkis, some plastic semi transparent green coloured straws, some golden little balls and a roll of twine. We walked up to sathram stand and took the return bus to VOC Nagar. I consider this a crusade though it was made fun with me tagging along, in my mother's secure hold because otherwise we would have got driven to chella stores in Dad's car. MDO 6656. The world looked so much full of life and thriving in her hold. The art and craft saga continues. I treasure amma's art some of which are still around for a pic. I don't know where it is right now but what has come in handy for a pic is dad's muffler which amma knit around 40 years ago. He lugs it around in his suitcase which has a few adult diapers also in addition to a few other of his memorabilia.

Dad's dirty shade ochre coloured muffler - one of amma's design .