Garage Sale Purchase

So we were going downtown when I saw this garage sale in the neighbourhood.

I screamed: S-T-O-P-T-H-E-C-A-R!!! The husband screeched our black beauty to a halt.

And there I was greedily eyeing everything from the junk called Garrrrrage Sale in front of this oldish house.

And I spotted these!

Wooden masks from Mexico lying on the dusty porch. Blasphemous.

And guess how much I paid for them?! Five bucks each. Well, it was a great deal considering I did not even have to use my charm!

From India, with Love!

With family comes gifts and extra baggage space in the airlines for all the things you have been wanting to transport from “home”.

These Madhubani paintings were  bought by my husband and they were lying in New Delhi all these years. Finally, my dad-in-law got them with him!

And this is my new spice chest which my sister gifted me this time.  
These little terracotta frog and turtle go so well with my “money plant”.

Did you see the Lakshmi that has newly arrived?
This was a wedding gift from a very favorite aunt. This again was lying in my in-law’s house in New Delhi and has arrived with my sister and brother-in-law since they had lots of extra baggage space.
I am yet to find a niche for this carved on wood Lakshmi. But till that time she is sitting with my two Italian stone owls and a set of books.

Comfort Overload In An Uruli

Okay, so I am showing off.

Yes, this sandstone uruli-like-bird bath, made in Rajasthan, shopped in New Delhi and sent all the way to Toronto.

My Ma-in-law picked this from a store called Prakriti (meaning Nature) near about Connaught Place, New Delhi. Looking up the store on Google, yielded no results, so do not ask me where it is!

This week I was feeling extra domestic, making the sondesh, using rose petals as prop, and re-using them to float in this uruli.
When I think of serenity in my life. I default to the obvious; tea lights. And I waited patiently for dusk to wrap my living room in darkness…and the result was S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G. This is exactly my idea of a comfort sight, something I find soothing and can keep gazing at it for hours…

What things comfort you?

Flea Shop Wanderings On A Friday

I wasn’t intending to write about my Friday afternoon knick-knack shopping. But I am rather surprised how some of them just snugly fit into the little nooks and corners of my home.

Take a look at this little cast iron "unicorn" I picked from a flea shop, it goes well with my terracotta horse from Dilli Haat.

This set of silver teapots on a tray were bought from an antique shop, they have "Made in Occupied Japan" etched on them. So my guess is they must have been made somewhere between 1945 to 1952, during the American occupation of Japan after World War II. A collector's item?

A fish plaque, also from the same flea shop. Finding “Nemo” was easy, she lay there with some old records on a retro-looking center table. I thought she would feel at home with my Italian stone owls. Any ideas what I could use it for?
 
In the same thrift store, I saw this little Japanese doll, hiding behind some old books. I thought this little boy playing a flute would pair up nicely with my ivory white shells, I had picked from the beach.

Every time I go to a flea shop, I convince myself I must have that piece. Its another story that I probably don’t need them, but you will agree they do look really cute in my home.

Problem Child With A Green Thumb

I was my parents’ problem child. (My parents probably think I still am!) I had strange obsessions with food, plants, flowers, shells, clay, pebbles, sand and junk. Oh and did I mention plants?

I’d climb half-way up our neighbor’s mango tree to break branches to make rustic “lamps”. I would knead through little hills of sand at neighborhood construction sites to dig for shells, to add to my Mum's pots of succulents, and did not mind dirtying my hands if I touched solidified cat poop during my “search”. One time I even brought home two Mutt puppies on my way back from my school bus stop, who kept howling all night. The next morning I was ordered to return them to their mother by my Mother. This was how Mum chose to repay my shell-collecting debt!

I grew up in a substantially large house. We did not have a garden though, but our large terrace was turned into a rooftop “garden” by my Mum (with help from the various Maalis she had from time to time).

There were two of us who were obsessed with this one dhoti-clad Maali (Hindi for gardener). Our pet dog Doogie and me. For reasons not known to us, Doogie would tug and nip on Maaliji’s dhuti every evening when he climbed the stairs. And sometimes when we were not watching, I think Doogie even got himself ankle-kicked by the old gardener.

But Maaliji was specially nice to me. I was the pupil he always longed for. You know, just to pass on his gardening gyaan. Even in the scorching May heat of Bihar, I would squat next to him when he was digging into roots, looking for insects and pests under the leaves, I would run to turn the water tap off when the water was overflowing from a bucket or help him undo knots in the rubber pipe. I would even get him his evening tea which my Grandmother made for him.

He would sit on the staircase leading down to the verandah sipping his chai, talking about his village farmland with my Grandmother, how consecutive years of famine disrupted his whole life! And how from a land-tilling farmer he had to become a “gardener” in the city.

Now as a big city girl in a space-challenged apartment, I am so glad I sat through all those sessions of repotting, pruning, fertilizing, bulbs being saved for the next year and all that handiwork which I watched and learnt!
I wasn’t planning for this post today, but I can’t wait to share with you photographs of our plants. For the sheer way they are sprouting happiness and soaking all that abundant sunlight we have been getting lately. The greenhouse effect in our condo has added that same cheer the old gardener brought about with his bare hands. The old man may have been illiterate and unschooled, but he sure knew through his experience that apartment gardening is not an oxymoron. Especially if you have a reputation of being a problem child with a secret green thumb.

My Home, My Easel

Apart from food, the only other thing that I like to chronicle is my home. Here I am sharing some images from the nooks and corners of my rooms of inspiration. These are the spaces which P and I love to come home to on a long and tiring day! And our home always welcomes us with arms wide open…