Socks in the Monsoon
I feel kind of tongue-tied (finger-tip tied?) after a long absence, as if I’ve lost blogging skills learnt the hard way. There’s lots to
tell: torrential rains all across my region with rivers in spate and all, but I’m really enjoying my first real monsoon in years. The trip from Mumbai to Pune across the western ghats (hills) is magical in the monsoon, with mist and rainclouds hanging low, waterfalls giggling (and occasionally guffawing) all around you and a cool cool breeze all the time. A hot cup of elaichi tea and a hot spicy vada pav with garlic chutney to go with it…. heaven.
I love the western ghats, especially in the monsoon. I walked in the warm, cascading rain in my hometown Panchgani one afternoon and it was bliss. If anyone reading this should ever go to Panchgani, please do have the seasonal fruit icecreams and milkshakes (mango, sitaphal, chikoo in the summer and strawberry and anjir in the winter) at Hilltop Icecreams, bang in the town’s centre. Best in the world, absolutely no doubt about it. Go quickly if you can, too, because if the city of Pune keeps expanding the way it’s doing now, Panchgani will very soon be a denuded suburb for rich Punekars with ugly row houses. The irony of a developer luring a million people to buy large houses in a “secluded, green area” to escape the crowds somehow escapes everyone.
What else? Some old friends and I from college had a boisterous reunion for a week, combing old haunts and digging up each other’s embarrassing moments from teenage times. I also dug up this:
Isn’t it hideous? This is the first ever garment I created, at age eight. The first, and probably last, crocheted project. My mum actually saved it.
My knitting fame, incidentally, has spread far and wide, i.e. to people who live in our housing colony, many of whom have brought their unfinished projects for me to help them with (or, shockingly, to finish for them). I repaired the v-neckband of one sweater, picked up some dropped stitches off another, and returned one project where the woman told me she had no idea what she’d set out to do. “Frog it,” I beamed at her and said. “Nothing like starting over.” It’s been fun! I’m practising my knitting vocabulary in Marathi.