“Hema, can you get that thing from there and put it over there?”….initial instructions to a mystified housekeeper, who hadn’t seen a washing machine in her life, who couldn’t figure out a microwave oven and who had this terrified body language, whenever I would call out to her like that. With instructions like that, who could blame her for wondering what’s coming next?!
When the knitting adventure began, 3 years ago, I got an additional set of 8 Hema-like women to handle. For them, my jean-clad, happy-divorcee, independent-persona was a new experience. Add to that, my insistence on perfect knitting, my eagerness to rip first and talk later, the strange patterns and even stranger knitting needles…it was enough to make any self-respecting Pahari knitter get the jitters and the tremors.
I had to learn Hindi numbers and words which could be applied to knitting, think of ways to convey patterns and instructions, develop the ability to smile and laugh whenever there would be this urge to strangle a particularly dense knitter, find wells of patience and calm and actually listen to feedback and suggestions from the knitters.
It was not easy for both sides, but we have come a long way down this path of knitted adventures. We reminisce about those early days of shivering and questioning and ripping out entire shawls. We laugh about the time when I tried to teach all the knitters this way of holding the knitting yarn…
and failing miserably ( they all knit in their style now, and I don’t even try to change their comfort system).
Learning to read charts for lace patterns had been all about re-programming their knitting brains. The usual circle, which depicts a yarn-over, would be taken as a “yarn-over+knit-one” instruction. Entire lace patterns would become bizarre meshes and all chart readings would end in deep confusion. Like little nursery children, the knitters had to rote out loud “ yarn over means yarn over”, till they got it ingrained into their eyes and brain.
The other challenge was getting the correct incline of stitches knitted together. “Knit 2 tog” and “ssk” refused to get translated into Hindi phrases. Finally, we devised hand signals which worked where Hindi failed, and it wasn’t long before perfect lace shawls were being knitted.
Knitting, like writing, can be a challenge for left handed women. All charts and instructions are for right handed knitters. While working for Umang in the first few months of living here, there was a time when both the knitter ( left handed) and me burst into tears of frustration after spending an entire day attempting to change the pattern from right hand to left hand. It was hard to figure out their way of knitting in the opposite direction and even harder to unravel or correct their knitting. We had 3 lefties in the initial group of 8 and I was sorely tempted to send them away. Today, I am glad I didn’t take the easy way out. We have nailed the issues now. Charts are read in the opposite direction, I find a quiet corner to give instructions and I encourage knitters to guide and assist each other before coming to me.
Weaving in loose ends of yarn,so that they disappear into the fabric, goes against the instinctive habit of tying a knot and pushing it into the wrong side.
The method shown above, was taught to the knitters, but what is the correct rhyming phrase for the English one of “smile+ umbrella”?! The women dubbed it “hansi-bhushi” and the name has stuck. After completing a project, the knitter will proclaim, “its time to do hansi-bhushi” and I watch the puzzled faces of the newcomers as they try and figure out this strange phrase.
I stuck to the same phrase in Spiti too..and it sure felt good to see our home-grown terminology spreading over the Himalyan range!
The joy of watching each knitter knitting away seriously, with a chart in front of her, speaking out the instructions from the diagram, and producing intricate filigree lace, has been one of the best experiences of Ranikhet.
It spurs me on to keep trying out new patterns and ideas for knitting.
It brings me back to the baseline, when I fall into the blue depths of despair after watching yet another good knitter make a glaring silly mistake in her project.
It makes me look forward to the best day of the week, Wednesday, when the house is filled with women, chatter and laughter, woolens, tape measures, tea and jokes.
Mala… I want to be you when I grow up….