Tuesday, April 10, 2012

What would Lemos Teacher say?

Mian and I both dread the days when a button comes off his shirt. That is when something primordial rises up in me and despite the fact that he is better with a needle and thread than I am, drives me to say, 'I'll do that! No, really. I can do it,  honest. It's easy as pie!' Being the gentleman that he is, Mian refrains from pointing out that I can't bake a pie either and hands over the shirt. If the shirt is lucky, I forget about it. An unlucky shirt gets mangled beyond rescue and handed back to its owner with the promise, 'I'll buy you another one. Honest.'

And this is despite Lemos teacher. In the fourth standard, we were taught the basics of sewing. In that entire school, she was perhaps the only teacher who saw being left-handed not as a sign of moral depravity, but as a reason for extra effort on her part. And so she picked up the needle in her left hand, and slowly, painstakingly, pricking herself all the while, taught me to hem and sew on buttons. Her return on investment was dismal.

All this  is to justify my unrestrained pride in this:
 Made all by my own self with half a pair of old jeans and bits of an older kurta!
Which brings us to the question I asked earlier. Would she grimace at the unfinished edges, or be pleased with the frugality of the project?

2 comments:

Unmana said...

That is very cute. You can be proud1

My mom's the seamstress of the family. I'm ashamed to admit I save up shirts with buttons off and clothes that need mending for her visits to me.

nadi said...

I like the round patch on the right.
I like that you remember the good things- people who were sensitive about things like left-handedness...

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