As I took my morning walk , that fateful day, my step was jaunty, my mood was euphoric. We had shifted, the movers had come and gone , no major breakages, the kitchen was already set up,all was well ,God was in his Heaven..
Now I always plan out my day during the walk. so too this day.Today was allotted for sorting out the clothes....that is Alto's. Since I had travelled wisely this time, mine took just under 25 minutes.
She had already told me to leave the winter clothing alone ..that could be unpacked when winter came and spring was far behind." Hallelujah '! sang my heart "that is 50% less work".
Came nine'oclock an assortment of suitcases, cardboard cartons, and bags appeared as if my magic. "amma, "said my daughter," there are some more wrapped around the glass jars" and blithely departed for work.
I took a deep breath, took a valium and started.First I separated the formals and then subdivided as Indian and western ..that was easy.Then I started on the skirts. that was when the nightmare started. They started from ankle-length and went higher and hi..gher until I could bear it no more. I sorted them out on the basis of length and labelled them in ascending
order. That was the math teacher resurfacing. Thank goodness they stopped a little above the knee.
Then the mindboggling trousers and shorts for every imaginable occasion... even one for doing sudoku in.Then I stared ....and restared. the garment I was folding had looked quite innocuous. It was a pair of shorts.. or was it? It was a shorts in the front but was like a skirt behind.How do I classify this? In my world of maths, black was black and white was white no 'tween shades of gray.I called up Alto..I could feel the fear in her voice" Has she burnt the house down?"I explained" Amma , that is called a skort!" she said. Skort! My God!
By evening it was all sorted out.. Everything I couldn't sort out I put under 'miscellaneous'.
You would think my daughter would be grateful. Not so. Come six'oclock I hear a shout from above..no not an" Ashariri"-- that was my ungrateful daughter -' Amma, where on earth is my black hand embroidered skirt ?' I rushed upstairs, and conducted a mini orientation course on where everything was. Then I asked my daughter' Dont you think it was much easier and better when you had just 6 sets of salwar suits and the seventh set made you feel like you were in seventh heaven' 'No' said my unrepentant Americanised materialistic daughter, surveying her overflowing closet, 'this is my seventh heaven' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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2 comments:
Well thanks for providing an insight to the other side of the story about rebuilding my closet. And I need to recall the "creator"(its been 4 weeks and counting), the "closet" looks like a mid-way stop to hell, not exactly the seventh heaven I wanted.
I was in a similar plight when there was this wedding we had to go to and a niece announced she had "nothing" to wear. So I offered to help and what I found in the wardrobe was about 40 types of brand new dresses with names I did not know - lacha, capri whatever. But everyone was rejected as "too tight", "too bright" "dont have anything to go with it" "I dont like it anymore" "I look awful in it".
Did you say materialism and American - hm.. this is the Indain variety.
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