The comfort of a patched quilt
It is merely not the object that gives a sense of nostalgia, but the sensorial associations we attach with it. The smell, the touch, the visual aesthetic and the intrinsic soul that it embodied when it was made by someone.
Picture a warm afternoon amidst yellow sands, standing by an old house with exposed bricks while others faintly painted in blue, with a huge ‘aangan’ inside, full of grains and cut pickles to be sun-dried. Next to this house is a small, hand run sugarcane juice instrument that pulps out enough juice for four in one go. There are mules around making the mundane sound, yet synchronized to the surroundings. That’s half-a-day in Naliya, Kutchch, Gujarat, India.
That’s where my roots are from. Three generations back, my great-grandfather was a native of the place. Slowly the droughts came by, his sons migrated to small towns (and villages) in Madhya Pradesh, India. Well, now after the structural migration, still few cues of our heritage stayed true in the family, whether the unique dialect of Kutchchi, skills of Bharat (embroidery) or the Ajrakh shawls, quilts in the house.
So, ‘What constitutes identity?’ is a strong question I ponder about every day. There are vivid memories of incidents, stories, faces, objects, people, visuals, materials, emotions, and narratives witnessed in all the contexts.
Even if we were in the same city, we moved homes and so, the ‘feeling of home’ for me has a completely different meaning — home is an evolved sense of nostalgic emotion that has visual, olfactory, and sensory cues and people to identify with. Although staying for too long at one place, there was always a reluctance for change. Home never happened to be a place for me, it happened to be many places, and multiple contexts. What stayed constant were only people, and certain sensorial elements. Like a chaos to be brought to peace. This constantly evolving environment often put me in a conflict with myself and questions about identity, a journey to understanding which, started at an online psychodrama workshop with my therapist. She asked me to pick one element which made me feel ‘safe’ or ‘comfortable’ — an object that I could associate with a person. This was in a new place where I was now staying in.
That put me into another question. What I had around me were some shawls and quilts — from across the country and world. There were stoles from the hills in Shimla and a leopard print quilt from a Germany trip. There were articles that had momentorial meaning to it, but nothing around defined safety as much as one particular quilt I kept looking for. It triggered a memory and a lack of that sense of comfort.
There was this pink dotted quilt which was made from an old, comfortable cotton sari my grandmother wore. One day, almost 15 years back, she put together a few saris which she had outworn to make into a comfortable quilt, which became my safety tent at nights. I used to sleep next to her most of my growing years, it was a very familiar smell that the quilt had. So no matter where we moved, that quilt was mine and with me everywhere, that was nicely tucked and stitched neatly with precision and a sense of warmth I felt from my grandmother. That was what I tucked myself in.
Years passed by, I moved many places, my family moved many places, and somewhere that patched quilt has crept in somewhere under one specific bed in a house that is locked up. Quilting although a very common practice in Indian household; can be distinguished by region, with the stickes and motifs used. But the elements of familarity and warmth that it brings, remains constant. To each, his own.
That quilt is my memory, a living keepsake, a nostalgic embodiment of a comfortable safety. Because isn’t familiarity in the first place, is what makes one feel safe? Binding the different memory triggers and cues that connect you better with a surrounding, material or person.
That is beyond the aesthetic beauty of the crafted product, it is an element with a holistic- emotional, sentimental and physical manifestation of comfort, informality and identity.
