carpenters

OK friends, it’s official. I’m in business in India! I have 2 partners, local Haridwarians. One is KK, my dear friend and yoga teacher, and the other is his best friend and an exemplary human being, VS. To say I feel lucky is an understatement – in the minefield of partnerships, let alone in India, I have undoubtedly been blessed. I’ll keep you updated with all the exciting plans, but first I have some funny stories to relate.

The first project we’re working on is setting up 2 flats as guest houses. Each one has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a living/dining room and a kitchen. They’re fabulous and brand new and in fact I’ve been living in one since I returned from Nepal. It’s tremendously amusing to me that I’m actually living in a gated community but the gate is primarily a children’s plaything in the daytime, the cows still come and go at will and the poor Bihari children who have nowhere to go while their parents work as the lowest of laborers are always at my door staring. But it’s very clean and I’m very comfortable.

The flats are empty, so we’re designing the furniture and having it built in situ by local carpenters. It’s been outrageously hot so it’s not surprising to see the carpenters sleeping on the marble floor in the middle of the day. Men have a lot more freedom in their dress, which means there’s no stigma in going around in one’s underwear. So I’ve quite gotten used to discussing measurements with an adorable young carpenter in his ochre cotton boxers and little singlet. I almost didn’t recognize him coming to work one day fully clothed, but his “Hello Mam” is unmistakeable. I’m completely at peace with being called Mam and have come to enjoy it like I love the sound of a Southern black woman calling me honey.

Everyone in India dies their hair black, though there’s an odd red that’s also popular, but it’s kind of garish. I’ve also come to enjoy the meetings with men with hair color in their hair, sometimes with a torn plastic bag covering the head, with a bit of color dripping off the forehead, down the ear to the jaw if the meeting goes long.

I, on the other hand, am not even allowed to wear shorts in public and in my last homestay I couldn’t even wear capris in the house. But abdomen baring is not a problem and it’s a part of sari wearing. The larger the woman, the more the exposure. The male version is just to pull up the t-shirt and let the stomach hang free, whatever the size.

Yesterday one carpenter went to get some pieces of wood turned to put together a mock up of a chair we need to finalize. By the time he comes back, another carpenter’s asleep on the floor again and when I ask KK if we should wake him, he says – let him rest. Fellow Americans, when do you get to do that at work?

Today we signed off on the chair. It, by the way, is a rough replica of an Arne Vodder chair. I wanted to show my partners and the carpenters some Western design that I love. They took one look and said, that’s the chair for us. So today the young carpenter squatted over a piece of plywood in his ochre undies looking at one computer picture and drawing a scale model of a chair that would work with the remaining wood we have, then building it. The result is beautiful! And it took less time than a nap.