Take it Further Challenge - February

It's almost the middle of February and I've just started work on the "pages" for February.

The challenge for February is - What are you old enough to remember? and you can take a look at the colour palette here.

I just got back to Bangalore over the weekend but I've been giving the Feb challenge some thought while I've been away in Madras finishing up the Zari embroidery project. It just struck me I still say Madras, Bangalore, Bombay and Calcutta but they have changed to Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkatta respectively and I'm not exactly over the hill. It's going to be a while I'm sure before someone looks totally blank when I say Calcutta, then I'll know I'm over the hill!!! :)

So what do I remember? I remember India before liberalisation, we made practically everything or rather anything you bought in a shop was made in the country there was almost nothing imported, post 1980's the economy has opened up and there isn't much that you can't get here, you're spoilt for choice whether its a car - there was a time when it was either an Ambassador or a Fiat, a telephone - you had to apply and wait for years before you got a landline, today everybody has a mobile phone and now you have to upgrade to the one with the latest feature- colour display, 5 mega pixel camera, blue tooth, humungous memory and the ability to upgrade, touch screen.... now everyone's waiting for the iphone to come to India .There's more choice than ever before.

What I find interesting is that life in the city or larger town is like living another country, the whole pace of life is vastly different from the little villages and towns where I go to do my craft projects, its almost like stepping back in time.I hardly carry any cash when I'm in a city, I have a credit card but it would be useless in the towns.

Women in the cities choose a profession and today you can be whatever you want to be , but I remember a time when most mum's were home makers and a "respectable" job would be to be a teacher or professor. The man was the bread winner, divorce was unheard of, its all rapidly changing.

Tailors - they were the ones who made anything you wore unless of course you had a mother who made paper patterns and could cut and sew just about anything, the tailors are still there because they are the ones who make the cholis and blouses for your sarees and they have to be customised, readymade cholis becoming the norm are a long way off but for anything else there's store after store bursting at the seams with ready to wear garments for men, women and children. Can't complain the choice is there if you want it.

Globalisation - the new mantra is here too but I hope we can keep the unique qualities of the food, language,festivals and culture alive, while we make an educated choice of what's flooding into our lives from abroad - it would be intersting to see how we've modified and adapted things, giving them an Indian flavour a couple of decades from now.

I have my work cut out for me - how do I create a visual of all this rambling and remembering.

Check back in a day or two I'm sure I won't disappoint.