I have always been a bit of an Indian Railways fanatic, and I will do a proper railways post later in the year, after I take a few more trips and better pictures. But after a very long time, I did something I used to love about train travel when I was in college - sitting in the open door of the speeding train with your face in the wind, watching the country go by. Our parents would be furious when we did this, and I don’t know if it’s my advanced age, or the increased speed of the trains nowadays, that this seemed a bit more dangerous now than back then. But swaying with the rhythm of the train and hearing the tracks bark at you as you is unbeatable. Back in the day with the steam engines, you could catch a piece of flying coal occasionally in your eye if you leaned out. Now it’s the acrid smell of diesel that you have to battle, but at the crack of dawn that day, the fresh river breeze easily subdued it. Being in an unreserved women’s compartment, with all the sociality that it entails, was even better.

The views of the sunrise, and the changing light, over the Kaveri river delta and its paddy fields were stunning as the train sped towards Thanjavur:

Speaking of coffee, there is very little in the world that provides as much joy and satisfaction as a good south Indian tumbler, hot and frothing.

I’m sharing it all with you, with some good news - I just heard, with official papers and all, that I now have tenure at my department. Big whoop of joy and all that, people!! This year has been hard in many ways, but this news brings me a lot of relief and excitement for the future. I do have to dust the seat of my pants and get cracking in the archives, but hey, I’m going to have some coffee and lie back and enjoy a break for just a little while longer. It’s great to be with my family to celebrate, but my first thought was to wonder what big knitting gift to get myself - I’m thinking a new umbrella swift, or better still, some semi-solid fingering Koigu for a sweater. I can’t do any of it until I return to Berkeley anyway and in the meantime I did get sloshed, but any suggestions?

So far it’s been smooth sailing, except for one major rip (hence the lifeline). It has faggoting on the edges, and I decided that I dislike faggoting. Not enough visual interest for the work involved. But now it’s there, so I’m going to continue it. The samples are a mix of knitted lace and pure lace (with patterning on both sides), with leaf motifs. These are simple patterns with just enough variation to keep them interesting. I think basic samplers like these are great to avoid the monotony of stoles. I am on the brink of finishing one major set in the pattern, but another travel stint is coming up, so it’s going to be set aside for a week or so. The red colour and the lace is very hard to photograph correctly (I don’t have pins and a carpet handy), so let me distract you with another blurry, artsy picture. The yarn is so fine I keep worrying about breaking it.

Here is something else I started for knitting while travelling, a pair of simple socks for my sister. Yarn is some Regia something. She wanted some multicoloured grey-blue; that’s what she’s getting. Right now, though, she can’t even bear to look at them, cause it’s nowhere near wool-sock-wearing weather, so they’re going to take a while. I also have to find buses with good suspension in which to knit them. Knitting is such a Nov-Dec activity here that it’s really unusual to see anyone knitting in public here outside those times. The fun thing about this project is that it’s a joint project; my niece Gargi shows up every now and then and knits a few rounds. This is her first project on DPNs and she coos every few minutes - such thin needlllllllllllles!

Finally, remember my yarn for the Cobblestone pullover? I had one 750 yard hank left over, and my mum has cast on for a Clapotis with it. Should look good in this yarn, no? I have a feeling she’s going to get bored with it once the increases end and both Gargi and I will pitch in, but right now she’s heroically at it. It’s worsted weight on size 8. Any suggestions about how wide to make it to get a long enough stole? I tried looking online, but was hit by an avalanche of Clapotis posts and suggestions.

I have a feeling all three projects are going to be WIPs for a while, though.

Well-heeled folks tend to shrink from horror at the STs, and there is undoubtedly much to sneer at - they can individually rattle each bone in your body, and the state of public facilities at the bus stations strains both the imagination and the bladder, particularly for women. The recently instituted, disastrous and utterly short-sighted, car-friendly policy of the Indian government has enabled more and more middle-class people to withdraw from such public spaces into their own cars, leaving them to the ever-surging numbers of poorer folks. Private Volvo buses nowadays compete with the STs, boasting better suspension and seats, if not superior driving skills. Both on popular highways and on small link roads, vans, 4×4s and the ambitiously named ’six-seater’s also eat into the STs’ revenues.

This harmless-looking six-seater is a marvelous python. It swells incredibly several times a day to swallow eight, ten, twelve, even fourteen people at once. It charges just a bit less than the STs, and its flexible metal body and equally flexible passengers allow its driver to pickle them in and make his ends meet. The buses thus find themselves in the unenviable position of having to ply loss-making public routes, with caps on fares further eroding their profits. Having grown up travelling in STs to go visit grandparents and other relatives, we were keen to take them once again on this trip. I don’t want to tell a trite (expat’s) tale about how this mode of travel allows one to see “the real India,” whatever the hell that is. But I have to say it was eye-opening to see how amazingly resilient and good-humoured these public services and their operators are in the face of remarkably trying work conditions, and how deeply and critically embedded they remain in daily life on and off the highways. If you have never ever been in a vehicle without a seat-belt the STs might not be for you, but hey, they also keep wonderful time. Only downside: too much rattling for any knitting.

Okay, enough pontificating. The Konkan is incredibly lush, especially in the monsoon when the whole landscape turns a fluorescent, shameless, almost golden green.

The Konkan is home to the magnicifient haapus or Alfonso mango, but it also has lots of other varieties of mango, jackfruit, arecanut, paddy, coconut palms, and lots and lots of chameleons, kingfishers, egrets, storks, kites and butterflies….
do click to make the thumbnails larger.

The region has a rich and diverse history, and is dotted with forts, temples and mosques, many of the religious structures newly refurbished by successive generations of locals who have migrated nationally and internationally for better prospects. The Shiva temple at Harihareshwar, with a rocky and surging seaface, is considered by many to be Dakshin Kashi, or the southern avatar of the holy city of Benares:

Some of the seafaces, like the one at Harihareswhar, are notoriously dangerous, but we were also lucky to find some quiet and unspoilt ones like those at Karde, Murud and Diveaagar, from where you can literally see the oncoming monsoon spells, thick shafts of grey from sky to sea along the horizon, heralding the lifeline of the subcontinent.

We walked for hours in the warm rain and swung across streams from long banyan ropes. By a happy coincidence, I happened to be reading Rathachakra, a famous Marathi novel set in the Konkan whose author, Shripad Narayan Pendse, was from Murdi, one of the very villages we visited. While Rathachakra is grim and often savagely critical of social life and human relationships, the landscape and our cavorting around also brought to mind other, prettier representations of idyllic rural life in this area as well - classic migrant narratives of the paradise left behind. All in all, it was all too real and fictional at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Bangalore to meet a few friends I hadn’t seen in some time. It was a whirlwind trip, but just what the doctor ordered for me. Gorgeous weather, good friends, yummy food, and a mad trip into the countryside to see some sights, singing old Hindi songs all the way. Really, what more does one need, ever? I took some photos of the new, shiny Bangalore, all glass and concrete malls and traffic like you wouldn’t *believe*, but that rant is for another day. This time, it didn’t dampen our spirits at all.

We took a trip in a large van to an old medieval temple dedicated to forms of the lord Vishnu at Somnathpura, built in the 13th century by the Hoysala kings of Karnataka.

Hoysala architecture is more famously represented at Halebidu and Belur, temples with stone carvings of an incredibly rich and detailed texture. Somnathpura is not quite as ornate, but it also doesn’t assault your senses and leave you gasping with the sheer intricate detail of the stonework at these two temples. It is quietly stunning, and is smaller and off the beaten track. Quite literally. Getting there from Bangalore is a challenge, with the ground sullenly arranging itself into a road at some points, and defiantly disintegrating into mud at others. But the quiet temple makes up for the bumpy journey, as does the gorgeous, gorgeous countryside dotted with palm trees and small ponds, especially in the monsoon. Having loony friends along for the ride smoothens it all out. The temple walls tell many stories, of battles, dynastic ambitions, the Dashavatara (Vishnu’s ten incarnations), and feature various gods and goddesses. In and around the temple complex, stone pillars seem to whirl endlessly in place, like potters’ wheels gone nuts.

The inscription at the temple detailing the land grants for its maintenance, in the beautiful Old Kannada script: (click all the small photos to enlarge them - it’s worth it)

It’s funny how you stumble upon an interesting question and then suddenly realise that it’s been buzzing around you for years without your being aware of it. I saw the goddess Lakshmi holding what looked like an ear of corn in her left hand, and was puzzled, because the temple is pre-Columbian, dating to the 13th century. After idle speculation about local grains like bajra and ragi, we left it at that. Googling and chatting with friends later revealed a whole controversy on this, as some scholars have held up these very sculptures as strong indicators of pre-Columbian migration of plants between the Americas and the old world, while others strongly dispute that it is corn/maize at all. Botanists, historians and anthropologists seem to be battling it out, as it has larger implications for our understanding of native American cultures and those of premodern Asia. I confess I don’t know much about the natural or cultural history of that period and have to read up more on the matter; Lakshmi too continues to stand uncaring and resplendent in stone. Any readers here know more about it?

The temple has other unusual representations, such as Narasimha (the half-lion, half-man avatar of Vishnu, fourth out of his ten incarnations) with his consort. Usually we see him emptying the demon Hiranyakashipu of his innards, but here on the photo above to the right he is calm and poised with Lakshmi on his lap.

I could stare at these friezes for ages. But we bundled into the van and headed to Ranganathittu, a nearby bird sanctuary. Lots and lots of storks, pelicans and cormorants in a lush, green park -

and plenty of ghariyals looking supremely bored and unconcerned with all the hoo-haa. We were in a boat much like the one you see in the background and despite the guide telling us they preferred fish to humans, we kept a safe distance from its gleaming teeth.

While we were in the boat, the clouds suddenly descended into a short and powerful rain shower that made everything an even lusher shade of green. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the other boat passengers as two of us burst into spontaneous song, even as we ducked under our dupattas - garjat barsat saawan aayo re… .

We came back to Bangalore tired and hoarse, but clean!

Ingredients:

1 cup split chana dal (Bengal gram)
1 cup split urad dal (black lentils that are actually white when split)
3/4 cup sesame seeds
3/4 cup dried and grated coconut
A handful of peanuts
approx 6 tbsp red chilli powder
1 small lemon-sized piece of tamarind, soaked and squeezed of all water
approx 2 tbsp of grated jaggery
salt to taste

For tempering - 4 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp black mustard seeds, 2 tsp cumin seeds, a pinch of asafoetida and turmeric, and lots of curry leaves

What to do:

So first, in a heavy-bottomed pan, you roast each of the dals, the sesame seeds and coconut separately, till they’re all nice and brown. You can roast them in the oven, I think (about 10 minutes at 350 deg with a couple of turnovers), but my attempt at doing that in our little electric oven resulted in blackened seeds and a fresh batch in the pan.

Then, you grind each one separately in a dry grinder very coarsely - first the chana, then the urad, then the sesame, coconut and peanuts together. After the tiny coffee grinder I use in Berkeley, my mother’s large dry grinder (which admittedly gets a lot more use than mine does!) was a treat. Then, you mix all together, and make five equal parts. Eyeball the parts, and add chilli powder the equivalent of one part. This is how my mum does it - you could add less or more depending on how spicy you want the powder to be. One-fifth of the total packs quite a punch, but is quite moderate compared to how some people like it.

Add the jaggery and tamarind and the salt, and mix well. The dry powders absorb the slightly moist jaggery and tamarind. These two, incidentally, are the two gatekeepers of my family’s mixed Kannada/Marathi cuisine. They feature in practically everything. The chef in action:

In a separate pan, make the phoDNii, aka tadka aka tempering - heat the oil, and then add the mustard seeds. When they start spluttering, add the cumin seeds, turmeric and asafoetida, and finally the curry leaves. Set it aside and let it cool. The leaves become nice and dry and crunchy. Then grind the chilli-lentils mix together once more to make it a bit more fine, and finally add the tempering to the powder. Mix well till all the oil is absorbed.

The final texture should be grainy, but not totally fine. In Tamil cuisine and some other parts of south India, the molagaapuDii is often eaten mixed with sesame oil, as an accompaniment to idlis. In our parts, or in our family at least, it’s eaten nearly every day with lunch or dinner as a side dish for pretty much everything. Either with yogurt, or with ghee. With chapatis, rice, dosas, mmmmmm.

I’ve been travelling a bit, and away from my computer, so I hope I didn’t miss replying to anybody from the last post…. more photos of my trip to follow shortly!

Plane travel is exhausting, disorienting, annoying and many other things. It also infantalises travellers like none other mode of travel. It’s not just the security staff who speak to you slowly but loudly as if you were either deaf or retarded, barking out orders in elaborate legalese-politese and processing you on a long and complicated assembly line from dangerous unknowns into government-deemed safe travellers. It is also the feeling of being strapped into the small, uncomfortable seat for so many long hours, with food brought to you every few hours. You sleep, you eat, some sort of entertainment hovers in front of your eyes to keep you diverted, and then you sleep and eat some more. This is how babies must feel - slightly out of focus and irritable and trapped. The flight attendants also treat you with a combination of firmness-laced-with-nice that parents whose patience is about to snap use on kids running wild. If the airlines provided diapers with the headphones and acrylic blanket wrapped in plastic, I imagine our regression to infanthood would be complete.

Speaking of actual babies travelling, there seemed to be many more than usual on this flight. Or maybe my claustrophobia was conjuring them up all around me. They wailed and howled throughout - sometimes in unison, sometimes in harmony, but always in dreadful cacophony. It occurred to me that anyone unsure about whether they want children would do well to travel on a transcontinental flight surrounded by infants and toddlers before they make a final decision. But I do feel bad for the parents, who always have this hunted, apologetic look about them. It must be awful to juggle discomfort and disorientation with a shrieking baby and dark looks from people all around you. I was virtuous, though - in keeping with the whole kids theme, I took refuge in The Sound of Music. (Btw, these are the Regia socks I began on another transcontinental flight in February - 64 stitches on size 0 needles, very plain and simple.)

That’s one point for Continental, I gotta say, even if they do, rather horrifyingly, charge for alcohol on international flights (WHY do American airlines do that?) - they have a whole set of very diverse films for you to choose from on your own little individual screen. Along with Julie Andrews, I also indulged in Jane Austen, with the wonderful, smart Emma Thompson adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and the godawful Keira Knightley adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. If you permit me to rant about this for a second, I wonder what Austen herself would have made of some rather odd moments in this adaptation. I didn’t mind that it took liberties with the dialogue - the S&S adaptation did too, but the ones in P&P somehow didn’t work as well, mostly because they seemed to turn this elegant narrative of manners into a faux-historical teenage drama. “Don’t you dare judge me, Lizzy!” Charlotte Lucas says (after choosing calmly to marry that horrible Mr. Collins), and that wooden Darcy, who looks like a confused, drowned rat with that oddly dishevelled look, unpardonably blurts out “I love you” instead of the glorious “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you” to Elizabeth Bennet. She, in turn, yells “Leave me alone!” to her family, slamming the door and running upstairs. WTF?? Ah well. At least the von Trapps were as familiar and saccharine as ever.

It is hot here, and very erratic and strong thunderstorms are allowing the electricity department to cut power even more than usual. But it’s also cool and breezy and deliciously overcast in the evenings, and I started a longue duree lace project to keep me company on my equally long research project. It’s the Beginner Sampler stole from Victorian Lace Today, in Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb, in tomato red, on size 3 needles. I am already loving it, but expect an FO only sometime around December, I think. My mum is convinced that my eyes are going to get worse from squinting at the tiny yarn and needles.

Oh, and I’m eating a lot of Alphonso mangoes. Mmmmmmm.

It will soon be too warm to wear all the wool sweaters, and I am packing them up. I took this picture for Swapna, who recently commented about imagining my cupboard full of handknits - they are not quite enough to fill a cupboard, but they are a decent pile and do nicely! I’m surprised that I don’t have more reds. Have to remedy that.

It is also that time of year again, when I go home to India and this blog features more food and travel than knitting. Except that this time, I am going not just for the summer but for a year’s research trip. I have waited six long years after graduating for some time off from teaching, and this is some hard-earned leave to do archival research for a second project. I am eager to get my hands dirty in the archives again and start working on relatively uncharted territory. For many reasons, it’s not the trip I had hoped for and looked forward to, and am anxious about how it will turn out. But one big plus, other than being able to spend so much time at length at home with my folks, is that the project will most likely take me to places I have never visited in the south and east of India. So I am excited!

All this is a preamble to saying that I will be blogging from India over the next year. Some of it will be about food, some about travel, random observations about lots of things, and some raving and ranting about work. Even though initially it will be too hot to knit, I will have lots of time and opportunity to keep the fingers flying, and so I am trying to estimate how much yarn I should take with me, which is easier said than done.

I plan to buy some acrylic yarns locally while I’m there, Swapna has most wonderfully arranged to get me some Pony rosewood needles, plus my mum already has all the notions I will need. But it’s not stopping me from trying to take my entire stash with me, and clothes and books and yarn and patterns are already overflowing out of my long-haul suitcase. Planning for that long a time away from my set up here is inducing tremendous anxiety as it is; tossing some knitting into it should be easy, but of course it’s not. Believe me, I am usually a light traveller and am taking this opportunity to freecyle and donate lots of things in the house, but am also suffering from an acute case of “but what if I need it?” syndrome, and an insane wish to pack books that have remained unread on my shelf for years. Also, all the patterns I want to knit right now seem to be, strangely enough, in thick, hardback pattern books.

So see you all soon on the other side of the world. But in the meantime, do tell: if you had to plan for a year away from your usual knitting routine, or even your usual non-knitting routine, what would you take and what would you leave behind?

Oh, and finally, did you see the cool “Ravel it” buttons on the left sidebar above each free pattern link? Ravelry offers a nice little html code to the pattern page and tells you the number of people making it - 118 people have made the Rangoli Hat! Okay, so it’s not Clapotis, but I had never imagined that so many people would knit it. It is most thrilling. I updated the pattern recently to correct some errors and suggestions people had pointed out, so if you downloaded it before May 22, do download the fresh 3.0 version.

I am wearing possibly the best handknit design ever. If you haven’t knit a Ribby Cardi, buy the pattern right now and cast on, because this is not only an easy pattern, it is clever and simple and results in a most satisfying garment. This one has quickly raced to the top of my sweater charts, beating even my Cobblestone. I cannot believe I bought the pattern so many years ago and didn’t knit it.

What’s that you said? I don’t look so pleased with it? How about this, then?

The basics:

Pattern: Ribby Cardi from Chic Knits
Yarn: Cascade Eco +, approx 1.5 skeins of the orange (0958) and 1 of the chocolate (8493).
Needles: Size 7 bamboo for the whole sweater, and 6 for the buttonbands and collar.
Gauge: Spot on, 4.75 spi.
Size: the 38-39″ one. It fits perfectly, with just the right stretch and ease in the side ribbing. A size larger and it would have been too loose. Bonne Marie Burns is very helpful and gracious with questions too, which is a big plus. Thanks to her for promptly helping me choose the right size and yardage.

The mods:
I knit the body in one piece, the sleeves in the round and then seamed the raglans. I also added a buttonband instead of a zipper. I don’t like zippers, much less inserting them, so I went with a buttonband instead. If you remember in the last post, the buttonband was vertical, knit with the main body. However, I didn’t like the way the single rib gaped. Since it was knit with the body, my first thought was - oh fuck, now do I have to rip out the whole body? Thankfully, my second and more sane thought was, no, I can just drop the purl stitches in the buttonband all the way down and crochet them back up as knit stitches! Exit ugly ribbing, enter smooth stockinette.

It worked like a dream, and only took me an hour or so to do. Then I picked up stitches along the side and re-sewed the buttons in - the old buttonholes at the edges vanished right into the pick-up seam. This new band is much more satisfying. Otherwise, I followed the pattern straight through and it worked like a charm. No errors. Here’s the regulation macro button shot:

Seriously, this is the kind of sweater I love to knit and wear - clean lines, comfortable fit and sturdy yarn. The Cascade Eco + softened beautifully after washing. I was a little concerned about the ribbed sleeves being a bit tight on my arms, but the soak and block really relaxed them. I love how they fit around the shoulders. If it had not so hot these past few days I would have finished the cardigan sooner; I think I’ll go for a walk tonight just to wear it outside.

Everyone, go knit one for yourselves!

Nothing like Kishore Kumar’s mad comic genius and wildly mobile body, face and voice, to liven up one’s spirits. The film in which it is featured, Chalti ka Naam Gaadi (If it runs, it’s a car) is available fully on youtube. See it - it is silly screwball comedy, as usual, but the soundtrack (by S D Burman), with lots of other Kishore songs, is superb. My favourite is Paanch rupaiyaa baarah aanaa.

The only silver lining to stress is that it keeps my fingers going feverishly. The Ribby Cardi body got done, and I added some buttons right away to see if it fits, closed. To my relief, it does.

Much of the knitting this semester got done as I obsessively watched TV episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, pretty much back to back. Netflix DVDs of TV series are perfect - mindless, and without the advertisements. But I thought I should take a break after an elaborate dream I had one night where Inspector Japp was complaining to me over a beer about Poirot’s dashed interference in everything, and I then took it up with Miss Lemon to tell Poirot to step back a bit, because his success rate was undermining Japp’s self-esteem. I woke up and was half-afraid that I would start lecturing in class in David Suchet’s affected voice and manner.

But last weekend in LA in the hotel room I saw an episode of something called “What Not to Wear” and I think I might have found another guilty pleasure. I cast on the Ribby’s sleeve with a DVD of its episodes. It is SO annoying in parts, but weirdly seductive. I oscillate between analyzing the coded messages the show transmits about the power of shopping and consumption to solve all kinds of self-esteem, body-image, emotional issues (”I want to dress better so my kids can be proud of me” - WTF????), and enjoying the Cinderella or Ugly Duckling story that unfolds every single time. Admittedly, it’s not as bad as another show I saw that night that involved all kinds of surgery and whatnot. Plus the two hosts are irritating and I don’t care for the whole “let’s make fun of you before we do your makeover”, but I’ve seen some of their advice about silhouette and fit and visual illusions on various Ravelry groups as well, and it’s most interesting. And of the few episodes I have seen, all the women were different ages and shapes, and it’s fun to see how they choose outfits for them.

So between Chalti ka Naam Gaadi and a feel-good Cinderella DVD this weekend, maybe my Ribby sleeves will get done soon too. Wish all my readers a relaxed weekend too!

I went down for a special event and to hear a dear friend and colleague speak (some of you might recognize who all that hair in the foreground belongs to!).

But it was also a lazy day of walking on the beach as the afternoon cooled down, exchanging gossip with friends, eating wonderful food, and getting a bit dizzy and nauseated in the famed LA traffic.

Apoos, you were sorely missed!

(I got some knitting done, about which more later. For now, can you spot two recently finished projects in the pictures above?)