muthalidam

[pavalamani pragasam]

Wihered by age

Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety said our great bard. Lucky Cleopatra. Only to be envied by simple specimens of the same species like me! Yes, it makes me sad & mad to realize age withering me! In spite of a sprightly, young mind! The spirit is willing but not the body! How tragic!

Please don’t be misled by such a complaining preamble & come to any hasty conclusions of my being forced to bedridden debility! Nothing of the sort. Just missed a rank in my ladies club rangoli competition yesterday. Got 3rd prize, missed the 2nd the judge said because of lack of linear precision.

Last week the competition was announced. I spent some solid minutes in planning for it. That is my custom & belief. Proper planning, preliminary preparations & paperwork for the project to be executed are crucial for me. I first finalized a design- I have an ardent admiration for geometric designs & symmetry. After a few drawing & erasing on a paper with a pencil & eraser I finally arrived at a satisfactory pattern. Then I brought my collection of colour powders and from the baffling array scrutinized with careful imagination what colour for which triangle & square. That decided, segregated the selected colours from the total set. In the paper design inside the triangles & squares I put numbers to denote the same colours & wrote out the same numbers on slips of paper which I put inside the colour powder containers. Not to be fumbling, recollecting what colour was destined for what portion at the moment of the execution!

Yesterday, the big day arrived & I diligently packed my paraphernalia of colour powders, a footruler, a chalkpiece, glitter powder for the final touch, a rag to clean any mess and so. But sat too long at the machine with my morning browsing schedule of reading mails, solving crossword puzzles, glancing through my favourite sites and then routine household chores. The result was I was a bit late for competition! It was under way when I entered the spot making me a bit nervous. I had reason to be nervous – in the matter of speed I am a close kin to tortoise! Being slow of hand( luckily not mind!) I have undiminished admiration for people who do things fast & briskly. Well, coming back to my project I kept away my footruler after very basic uses. Carefully filled the colours one by one referring continuously the neatly numbered diagram in hand. The others had completed before the stipulated time making me jittery. Adding to my tension an occasional gust was playing havoc with the colour powders trying make new colour shadings not conceived by me! Further, towards the end my age which I had so long conveniently forgotten came to my consciousness in the form of shaking knees & painful thighs! I had come to a state of resignation & finished the final outlines emphasizing the pattern with shaking fingers, taking care not to trespass into the colour regions which left no sufficient room for strict observation of straight, coordinating line structure. With flourishing tassels the carpet design did look satisfactory. I left it in the hands of the judge to rank it as she liked ready to accept it whatever it was.

With the other members having brought out wonderful, imaginative tapestries in colour powder, I had concluded ‘no prize for me’. So when the judge’s announcement of third prize for my work came as a surprise to me. She explained though I had better colour choice the 2nd prize winner had perfect precision of lines. (The story of the first prize is different- it was a superb natural scenery, very beautifully imagined & executed).

In retrospection I have decided to put the blame on my age- physical age!!!