Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's Blog, page 125
April 8, 2016
Today in Photo
Friday nom noms. Here's my version of a Food 52 Apple Custard squares, except I don't have a square tin so I baked it round. It's fruit season and also light dessert season and this checks all the boxes. Not to mention, prep takes all of 15 minutes. It's also delicious. I used brown granulated sugar instead of white, so this is not super sweet, which is why I dusted it with powdered sugar. Next time, I'm going to add cinnamon to the batter. Pro tip: too lazy to wait for butter to melt? Grate it! YOU'RE WELCOME. #baking #domesticgoddess (photo by K)
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April 7, 2016
April 4, 2016
Today in Photo
Series. I love my library, and today with a whole bunch of hassles, I need to remind myself of the stuff I love. This is from my children's section, which, because of age and nostalgia, I'm way prouder of than the better looking adult books which are on the left. From top to bottom: LM Montgomery, The Babysitter's Club and the Enid Blyton mystery series. #bookstagram #shelfie
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April 3, 2016
Sofa Away From Me
It has been nearly a month since we shifted into our new home and still, I haven’t been able to have a party of more than four or five people over at a time. The reason? We have no sofa.
This may sound petty to you — certainly it’s reading a little petty to me as I’m writing it — but being now of the age where folding oneself onto the floor for longer than an hour or two leads to creaky hips and aching backs (blame our sedentary lifestyles), I cannot, in all good conscience force my guests to discomfort. Once, we had about 10 people over and like a good hostess, I stayed standing while everyone got dining chairs and by the end of the night, my knees ached with the effort of holding me up for so long. And I do yoga regularly.
After many weeks scouring online websites and finding nothing exactly perfect — eg: great shape, but too-delicate fabric, which wouldn't last a week around our cats; nice colour, but a bit boxy looking; prohibitively expensive for all its style — we decided to go the Indian way and have the sofa commissioned and made from scratch. A craftsman came recommended from a friend, we bought the yards of plain black (apparently cat-proof) fabric, handed it over to him with an advance and picked a design from his coffee table book catalogue. It was a deceptively simple looking sofa, sleek and stylish with rounded arms and comfortable enough for two people to lie, feet facing each other at the end of a long day. We imagined narratives around it, eventually we will acquire a projector and this will be the sofa on which we watch movies. I imagined my stylish friends, in pretty shift dresses standing out against the black fabric. I imagined the winter to come, how the sun would hit it in just the right spot, me and a cat curled up for an afternoon nap.
There are things in our new home I’ve never owned before: a dining table that seats six and now a three-seater sofa, all indicating our couple-d lives, a “we” instead of an “I.” I put furniture into terms I can understand — like a set for a stage or a blank page of a Word document. What scene are we setting? This is a house that will be full of people we love. This is a house that will see us entertaining effortlessly. This is a house where there is a comfortable nook in each room for two readers to be alone together.
Unfortunately, the sofa maker didn’t see it that way. Proud as we were of supporting local businesses and not going online (plus saving some money), it seems to be an uphill task. His first photos (sent weeks after the commission, despite my urging) were of a boxy black sofa. Comfortable? Maybe. But not our original design. We edited, I wailed down the phone, he sent back draft two: still not what we were waiting for.
Finally, we sent him a drawing marking out exactly what needed fixing. He claimed to understand, but also told me categorically that he wasn’t a photographer. “Just come and sit on it, madam,” he said on the phone, “You’ll see how comfortable it is.” Unfortunately, my Hindi does not extend to the point where I can convey that comfort is all very well, but it’s not the original sofa that we chose from his catalogue, one he promised us he could make with no problems at all.
And that’s why small businesses in India seldom do very well to an outside audience. For me, it’s par for the course, having grown up in this country, I’m used to not having exactly what I want when I have something made, but for my European partner, it’s sacrilege to pay someone for a service he considers unrendered. And probably, if this sofa ever gets made and we use it and then in five or 10 years time, we consider replacing it, it’ll be the online route for us, just because this was such a time-consuming project, all the calls and all the photos and all the driving we have to do to his far away workshop, just to explain to a professional that the sofa he made for us was not the sofa he promised. (It’s not like his labour was cheap either.)
And therein lies the problem: he sees it as “good enough,” we see it as “not what we wanted.” Will there always be this culture clash? And will online and factory shopping eventually give the customers what they want, so all these enterprising men will someday be history?
(This appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
This may sound petty to you — certainly it’s reading a little petty to me as I’m writing it — but being now of the age where folding oneself onto the floor for longer than an hour or two leads to creaky hips and aching backs (blame our sedentary lifestyles), I cannot, in all good conscience force my guests to discomfort. Once, we had about 10 people over and like a good hostess, I stayed standing while everyone got dining chairs and by the end of the night, my knees ached with the effort of holding me up for so long. And I do yoga regularly.
After many weeks scouring online websites and finding nothing exactly perfect — eg: great shape, but too-delicate fabric, which wouldn't last a week around our cats; nice colour, but a bit boxy looking; prohibitively expensive for all its style — we decided to go the Indian way and have the sofa commissioned and made from scratch. A craftsman came recommended from a friend, we bought the yards of plain black (apparently cat-proof) fabric, handed it over to him with an advance and picked a design from his coffee table book catalogue. It was a deceptively simple looking sofa, sleek and stylish with rounded arms and comfortable enough for two people to lie, feet facing each other at the end of a long day. We imagined narratives around it, eventually we will acquire a projector and this will be the sofa on which we watch movies. I imagined my stylish friends, in pretty shift dresses standing out against the black fabric. I imagined the winter to come, how the sun would hit it in just the right spot, me and a cat curled up for an afternoon nap.
There are things in our new home I’ve never owned before: a dining table that seats six and now a three-seater sofa, all indicating our couple-d lives, a “we” instead of an “I.” I put furniture into terms I can understand — like a set for a stage or a blank page of a Word document. What scene are we setting? This is a house that will be full of people we love. This is a house that will see us entertaining effortlessly. This is a house where there is a comfortable nook in each room for two readers to be alone together.
Unfortunately, the sofa maker didn’t see it that way. Proud as we were of supporting local businesses and not going online (plus saving some money), it seems to be an uphill task. His first photos (sent weeks after the commission, despite my urging) were of a boxy black sofa. Comfortable? Maybe. But not our original design. We edited, I wailed down the phone, he sent back draft two: still not what we were waiting for.
Finally, we sent him a drawing marking out exactly what needed fixing. He claimed to understand, but also told me categorically that he wasn’t a photographer. “Just come and sit on it, madam,” he said on the phone, “You’ll see how comfortable it is.” Unfortunately, my Hindi does not extend to the point where I can convey that comfort is all very well, but it’s not the original sofa that we chose from his catalogue, one he promised us he could make with no problems at all.
And that’s why small businesses in India seldom do very well to an outside audience. For me, it’s par for the course, having grown up in this country, I’m used to not having exactly what I want when I have something made, but for my European partner, it’s sacrilege to pay someone for a service he considers unrendered. And probably, if this sofa ever gets made and we use it and then in five or 10 years time, we consider replacing it, it’ll be the online route for us, just because this was such a time-consuming project, all the calls and all the photos and all the driving we have to do to his far away workshop, just to explain to a professional that the sofa he made for us was not the sofa he promised. (It’s not like his labour was cheap either.)
And therein lies the problem: he sees it as “good enough,” we see it as “not what we wanted.” Will there always be this culture clash? And will online and factory shopping eventually give the customers what they want, so all these enterprising men will someday be history?
(This appeared as my column on mydigitalfc.com)
April 2, 2016
Today in Photo
Absolutely blown away by this series. Yes, it's another Mahabharata retelling but a version that's sort of explores similar stuff to the project that I'm working on right now (there are only nine original plot lines in the world.) Extremely readable even for people not familiar with the story and told High Fantasy style with complex characters and lots of plot. I tore through the first one and am just about to begin the second. #nowreading #250in2016 #readingchallenge #bookstagram
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April 1, 2016
Today in Photo
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. In the distance, through the shimmering summer heat, there she sits, this picture of coolness, towering over the world. #delhidiary
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March 29, 2016
Today in Photo
I've been so busy with house & freelance work, I haven't done much (any) Real Writing recently. (if my editor is reading this: I'm sorry! I'm back on track now!) Warm up writing is like stretching before you exercise, important to keep your muscles from cramping. I'm going to retell a fairy tale, a quick short to get my brain back in the zone, and here's my source material, an ancient falling apart copy I bought in London for three pounds. As Coldplay says, "Nobody said it was easy, I'm going back to the start." #bookstagram #writinglife
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Today in Photo
Yay our planter's chairs are finally done! Repainted from wood colour to white, recaned the seats & picked up this super fun Bollywood fabric to add some whimsy with cushions. I adore them. The sofa however is turning out to be quite a laborious task: we commissioned a design, which the guy didn't follow and now we're making edits which he's grumbling about. Uff. But at least we now have a comfy place to sit in the living room while we wait. Which could be forever. *sigh* but these chairs make me happy. #bollywood #chairs #homedecor
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March 28, 2016
Today in Photo
K's parents sent me a hand mixer to take my cakes to a new level, so of course, yesterday we had to try it out. Behold: lemon pound cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, layered with the same. The pound cake is delicious, very light and fluffy, but frosting is my nemesis. However it's still better than the frosting I've made before and hopefully a night in the fridge has made it set a bit. Soon we'll be pros. #baking #domesticgoddess
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March 26, 2016
Today in Photo
Sunday morning and we're up bright and early to beat the traffic back to Delhi. This from the picnic yesterday, and also after I decided I didn't have enough photos in my new shades, quickly turned from "Haha, heart shaped sunglasses!" to "omg I totally want a pair. " My hair is ridiculous and straw like, so it's to the salon with me tomorrow and back to a shorter bob, just easier to maintain, all in. Happy long weekend! Hope yours was as fun as ours was. Thanks mostly to the awesome home stay we were at called Foothills Himalaya with amaze food & excellent service. @rushilshergill, thanks for a lovely time! #corbett #traveldiary
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