I took the plunge this winter. Right into the icy water. I moved to the hills of Kumaon in November. It’s a brave move because I’ve moved only my cats and myself, leaving behind such luxuries as my bookshelves, piano, baking dishes, stock of wool, photo albums, letters from my parents and siblings, crochet hooks, winter boots, whisks and Lee Kum Kee Spicy Black Bean Sauce.
Ever since I bought the cottage that had no name and is now called Sage Cottage, there’s been a window with a crack. It’s more like a skylight with a crack wide enough to let in spiders and other insect wildlife. It is a minor irritation in the Summer months, more so in the Monsoon, that season of leeches, damp, fungus, snakes, scorpions, floods and landslides that I pretend to like ‘because it’s good for the crops’.
The crack, letting in the light, as per Leonard Cohen. But also the cold.
Befitting the mildly annoying status of the crack I have made desultory enquires about getting it fixed in the last four years. Contractors and carpenters have thrown a cursory glance at it, nodded confidently and nonchalantly and said it would be done. This response and stance are to be expected from any man from the northern part of India. They then promptly forgot it. Not unusual either. I’d stopped noticing it, or blaming it for the spiders I found in the loo and the cupboard and possibly under the kitchen sink - although that may have been a plate.
After Christmas, the cold slowly lost its novelty and charm. Christmas was not merry. A friend, invited for Christmas arrived on Christmas Eve announcing, ‘Christmas means nothing to me’ progressing from there to resist all things Christmassy. On the ‘naughty’ list were wine, romcoms and Christmas meals. On the ‘nice’ list were ‘using up, so they don’t go bad’ the alfalfa sprouts and zucchini she had brought with her. After she left I looked at the quesadillas and pizza bases, artisanal cheeses and clotted cream that lay in the fridge, forlornly neglected. She left soon after Christmas, leaving me to drink my way into the New Year and eat the gourmet food by myself. I’m trying to understand what drives house guests to be bossy.
Because I’d been deprived of Christmas cheer and the loving warmth that season evokes January seems bleaker. I began to look for ways to be more comfortable. Let me clarify - to be warmer. My eye fell upon the crack. I asked the young man who helps around the house whether he could tape it up. He said he could, with energy and enthusiasm, and set out to buy ‘tape’. He returned with sellotape - one cm wide, a little useless for a two cm wide crack. A five cm wide tape nestled in my cupboard, which I handed him, and he climbed the 12 feet up to the window which is a skylight. He climbed up on a long ladder which is my prized possession. An essential object for anyone who lives in the Kumaon where the roof must be accessed constantly. More on that. I promise you.
The crack sealed, the indoor temperature rose by several degrees. As we surveyed our handiwork smugly, I looked out of the (huge) glass windows to see a man standing outside, directing a small truck. With furrowed brow I wondered at his cheek, only to realise it was my new carpenter, Rafik. I had ordered a bed, due on the 5th of January and the date had come and gone, as I knew it would. It had whooshed by, unremarked and unmourned, as deadlines tend to do. The old carpenter Vaseem had gone over his deadline by 5 months. The whooshing wasn’t silent by then, but more of a roar. Or it could have been me that was roaring. Under these circumstances, I was more than a little surprised to see the bed at my doorstep a mere week over the due date.
Impressed by Rafik, I showed him the crack in the skylight after he’d assembled the bed with an efficiency that left me wide-eyed. He responded as I knew he would, with a cursory glance, a confident nod and a nonchalant reassurance. Well, nobody likes to say they can’t do something. Anyway, the tape would hold for a few months.
Rafik showing more initiative than other carpenters
MORE TOMORROW