The Greatest Dance Performances in the World

The greatest dance performances ever seen are those that feature one's own children. These are the best dances a person can ever witness.  Nothing tops it.

Blizzard

Kumbhar Colony in West Delhi

If you would like to see a 23 second movie of some pottery workers in Delhi, click on this image. You will have to click again, and then once more.

It took me an hour on the metro, including two transfers, to get to Uttam Nagar East, the stop nearest to Kumbhar Colony, home to pottery production in Delhi. I had to run a few times making my connections and I am afraid it was necessary to push at times. When I got off, I did not want to look lost so I started walking purposefully, hoping to find someone to give me directions.

I found myself walking down the narrowest residential lane I have ever seen. There were women sitting and knitting - those ubiquitous sparkly vests so popular on the men in Delhi! And children playing. Everyone smiled and seemed friendly, but I was pretty sure no one would be able to give me directions in English. A group of older men were staring at me, so I decided to ask them. They gave me elaborate directions in Hindi, of which I understood nothing except the first part: "sida" (go straight) and then something-something-something. I thought maybe I heard "Mother Dairy" somewhere in there, which made me briefly hopeful. Maybe it would be a useful landmark, or at least I could eat some ice cream. But instead I decided to head back towards the metro before I got totally lost and disoriented. Then I headed down a busier road and I decided to ask a boy in a school uniform. He  enlisted a man's help who not only gave me more verbal instructions in Hindi but also wrote something in Hindi on a piece of paper the boy supplied from his school notebook. I decided to keep trying to find the place by wandering in the general direction suggested, and I also decided that if I did not find it in one hour I would give up. It was coming up on 45 minutes of wandering. I was walking down a lane that had some businesses but was still rather narrow and windy, and I came to an especially wet and muddy and garbage-strewn stretch of the road. I thought this might be a good time to give up or ask for directions again. My policy had become that I would ask directions from anyone who I felt was staring rather rudely at me. And they had all kept directing me down this particular lane. Then at the mud-garbage junction I got worried anyway, and so I asked a man who pointed me to the right turn coming up ahead. He was very nice and apologized for not speaking English. I wanted to apologize for not even being able to pronounce "Kumbhar" properly. "B" followed by an aspirated "h", yeah right. The Hindi instruction book suggests English speakers find that same combination in the words "club house". I can't pronounce "Bhogal" properly either. Anyway, lacking a bread crumb trail, I thought that I might try to remember it on my way back as the T-intersection with a pink apartment building. I turned the corner, and there it was, the 3 or 4 block stretch of pottery production I was looking for. Hurray! Now I don't have to tell my daughter I gave up never having found it!

I decided to walk the length of it and then take pictures on my way back out. So I found at the other end there was a small courtyard full of pottery with some older men sitting out in front. I asked if I might enter and take pictures, and they gestured yes, so I did. But then an older woman appeared and wanted money from me, and I said no. The men laughed "no money no money" and so I worked my way back from the direction I had come.

Is that a kiln back there?

The only work being done in the street seemed to be clay mixing. I could peek in the interiors and see people working, the men sometimes on wheels with motors. In the first interior room I approached I met a man who was making slab tumblers that he pressed into a 2-sided mold. He spoke English, and said he was a teacher and he was making the cups for his school with the school's name on each one. The woman in the room was making turtles of clay.

On the street I saw many stacks of finished pots as well as trays of drying pieces. And lots of heaps of mud/clay as well as broken piles of pottery.

I peeked in another room with women applying the gold decoration to some finished pots. And another with men making flower pots on the wheel. My movie caught a man trimming the bottom of some pots as a woman inscribes a design. Everyone was so photo-friendly! I even had a few children request a photo, which they never even viewed, and then some one on the street directed my gaze to a balcony with 4 people all wanting to pose for a photo as well.

I thought the people were especially good-looking in this neighborhood, Kumbhar Colony.

Smile for the Camera

I've gotten quite good at shooting a picture of myself and someone else while holding my camera at arm's length. But I usually do not have to force the other subject to face the camera. As I did for this shot where Wallie was not getting the idea of looking at the camera. Not to mention the idea of smiling for the camera.

View Through the Window Screen

She Can Drive a Tractor

She  has driven a tractor. A tractor with a stick shift. I don't know, maybe they all have stick shifts. And also a big riding lawn mower. But she does not have a driver's license, and has not, to my knowledge, ever driven a car.

Sometimes Scary, Sometimes Pretty

Sometimes this gangway seems really creepy and gross to me, yet other times, it is not. Rather it becomes a place where a dancer might arabesque through it on point shoes.

My World Can Look Scary Too

Look, no windows.

Long way down.

You can look right in.

Crazy Dog

Crazy Wallie-Dog defies gravity.

Does Anyone Else Think This Looks Like Knitting?

Not the whole column of course, which is at Qutb Minar in Delhi, although taken, I believe, from a ruin of a Jain Temple. But the band at the bottom, which looks just like two rows of knitting to me, except that they are aligned with one another.

Back to Knitting

Before going to India,  I felt I should finish up some knitting projects in case I bought some yarn there. So I finished this project that I had been ignoring for years. Well I saw no yarn in India, or at least no yarn I wanted to knit with or wear. (Arylic with a metallic thread throughout for interest is not for me.) But I did see one knitted garment at the Besant Bazaar in Delhi that interested me: a stole with one sleeve in the middle. And that is my next project. I have started it with Koigu's beautiful KPPM yarn.

Good Advice About India

I think my favorite advice of all times came from a security officer in the Amsterdam airport. At the gate, just before boarding the plane to Delhi, there was one last security checkpoint. I held open my passport for the man standing at a kind of podium, he looked at me, then at the page with my picture, then at the page with the visa stamped in it.
"Your first trip to India?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Brace yourself."

Home for Girls in Delhi

One young girl asked me to draw her face. At first I thought she said fish, and I drew a fish. Once I understood, I became quite popular.

My skills from the old days of portrait-sketches-on-the-boardwalk came in handy.

My First Day in Delhi Without Alice

After three nearly sleepless nights in Delhi (jet lag could do this?), today, Monday, I was faced with the absence of Alice. Alice who speaks some Hindi, Alice who knows when to walk away from a ridiculous auto rickshaw price, Alice who knows were they make these really good dumplings and what they are called. Alice, who is not afraid of Delhi.

My plan for today was not an ambitious one: a jog in Lodi Gardens followed by lunch in Khan Market. And successfully negotiating transport to all points and back home. So at 9 am I set out walking to the nearest busy street, where I was surprised to have trouble finding an available auto rickshaw. So I started walking toward my destination, and after 15 minutes one came by. He stopped. I said "Lodi Gardens", he said "Lodi" followed by some word I could not catch, I repeated, he did the same, then on the third repeat, he finally chorused "Lodi Garden". So I asked kit na (how much) and he said 30 rupees. I felt flattered by the 30 he suggested as I did not feel he was driving up the price for me. He deposited me there, and I found the lovely packed-clay jogging path. I jogged this way and that, turned around if I found myself coming up to the road, backtracked plenty, and mostly tried to stick to that nice surface and avoid the flagstone paths. Forty five minutes later I decided good enough, and wondered which way might be north and the direction of Khan Market. Sivandar Lodi was the monument that would serve as my landmark for this end of the gardens, but all the monuments confused me without markings. So I choose a distinguished-looking gentleman and asked which way this monument might be, and he pointed out that we were standing right at it.

So I got oriented and headed toward the main gate at the street, where I immediately was offered an auto rickshaw to Khan Market for 20 rupees. Sounded like a deal to me. The driver pulled into the market and dropped me off in front of a stationary store.

And the first thing I saw was a basket of the wood cuts originally used to print designs on fabric, an object I have long desired to possess! I pawed through the basket until I had seen every single one and chose three to buy.

I ate, browsed in the book store, and could have bought sleeping pills marked "prescription only" at the Chemist, and did not.

And I made it back to Alice's flat successfully.

Hats, hats, hats

All these hats are my original designs. To the right is an alpaca hat with white angora trim.

Below is a wool hat done with simple knit-purl combinations.

Entrelac!

This gray hat and the next two purple hats are wool with felted bands, knit with Lanaloft.

What a beautiful model I have!

Mohair Sweater

I bought this yarn - it was in the form of a kit - from a resale shop in Flossmoor IL that is long gone. The cover of the box that held the yarn identified it as dating back to the fifties. I do not even remember the design that the knitter was to follow, but it might have been some variation of a twin set. The main yarn is mohair and the dark brown is 100% angora. I knit from the top down just like a raglan, but rotated 45 degrees.

WIP

I think this will be a really nice sweater when I get around to finishing it. The trouble with working from the top down is that the fun part came at the beginning, and now comes the long stretch.

Finished!

Uh oh, this sweater has gone to live in Delhi with Alice. I am actually making another one, this time from the bottom up. Just for my own amusement. And because I have enough of this yarn on hand.

Pinch Pots

I might just make a whole set of dishes this way.

These pinch pots are porcelain clay with a clear glaze.

Knitted Sweater Vest

This beautiful yarn is from Spincycle Yarns in Bellingham, WA.

The stitch pattern is from Barbara Walker's 1st book,

and is called "pinnacle chevron."

Beautiful Bellingham