Treasures are Handmade and not mass produced

Buried under pieces of craft paper, mounds of fabric, beads rolling on the floor and piles of glitter; as I look around the mess I have made in my house, I feel a sense of accomplishment and I can proudly say, “I made that!” The feeling is no different from when we were young and created an animal out of clay. We would take it to our mom with starry eyes as she oohed and aahed over our amazing work or art. Was it art? Maybe not, but we still stood with pride saying “look what I made”.

I believe there is an artist in all of us, however, as technology and mass production has taken over, many of us have moved away from handmade art, or we simply do not have any time to appreciate the work that goes into creating everyday objects. So why should anyone still buy handmade art when every piece of art is readily available in bulk in stores?

Being a tiniest bit of an artist myself, I’m going to give you a few reasons (some logical, and some purely emotional) that might sway your decision to buy handmade over mass produced. But read cautiously, as it might strike an emotional chord in your heart and you might instantly want to seek out for creative handmade products.

Piece of the artist: When buying from a hand maker, you are buying more than just an object. You are buying hundreds of hours of failure and experimentation. You are buying days, weeks and months of frustration and moments of pure joy. You aren’t just buying a thing, you are buying a piece of heart, part of a soul, a moment of someone’s life. Most importantly, you are buying the artist more time to do something they are passionate about. You will probably never know how much your purchase is truly appreciated.

Be assured, it’s made with love: Long before my stuff even exists, I spend sleepless nights just thinking about what it would look like, how will it function and what its purpose will be. I invest a great deal of time in the planning process – the overall design, the construction, the materials, etc. Once I know what I’m making exactly, I have to find the perfect material to complement my idea of the finished product. I then shop until I find just the perfect things to make the stuff I have envisioned. For days, I have dreamt of the finished product. And when I finally hand over my production to you, I sign it off with lots of love.  

One of a kind: Have you ever been to a mall and run into another person wearing the same tee-shirt as you? Or have you ever been to birthday party where someone brought the same gift as you and you stealthily want to sneak away your gift before it’s opened? With handmade stuff, you will never face this situation. Your stuff will always be unique. You can be the first one of all your friends to discover a great designer. You don’t have to ever say that you bought it at Ikea J

Humanity over practicality: Buying handmade supports the concept of keeping it real!! Handmade puts humanity back into our lives. You support the local community of artists, encourage stay at home moms, help contribute to establish a new economic model, boost the use of recycles materials and contribute to decreased fossil fuel consumption. And let’s admit it, buying handmade is so much cooler!!! 

Treasures are Handmade and not mass produced: Imagine if there were more than one Kohinoor diamonds in the world, or more than one Taj Mahal. Appreciation for a handmade product is million times more than for a mass produced product. Answer this: why do you have a drawer full of hand written cards and letters, even though they are just occupying space?

It’s getting personal: A handmade gift conveys so much more than something pulled off the display of a mega store. It’s fun to see the creativity and excellence of the very, very talented designers out there. You are buying something very personal not only to the buyer, but to the maker. You carefully choose something that you love, that was created with love, and will be received and cherished with love.

Here’s something I read that summed up all the above points beautifully, “You can’t buy love, but you can buy Handmade. And that’s kind of the same thing”

So, what do you think?  Would you consider a handmade quilt over factory produced?  Are you going back to basics in some way or are you one who believes that we should embrace all things that make us go faster and easier?  A combination of the two?  No right answers, but take a second to really think about it and share it in the comments!

Myths about pregnancy debunked.

I had an early morning meeting that day. I woke up 15 minutes after the alarm stopped ringing, took a quick shower, got ready just in time to have a quick bite of breakfast, packed my lunch and as soon as I was about to step out of the house, I sneezed. Well, I sneezed and in effect wet my pants.

But before you judge me, let me tell you, I am 6 months pregnant and have absolutely no control on my bladder.

Now that I probably have your attention, let me begin my post on how pregnancy is not all that fun.  

Everybody tells you how wonderful it is when you hold your baby in your arms for the first time. They tell you that your baby’s toothless smile is worth a million bucks. They even tell you how they can easily trade their sleep to see their little baby sleep. But what they conveniently forget to mention is the “not-so-fun” phase that accompanies pregnancy. Maybe they don’t want to scare you, or they just want you to go through the same ordeal that they did. Either way, the whole myth about “pregnancy initiates motherly instincts in you”, is such a lie. I haven’t had any such feelings yet, but instead, I can’t wait for it to be over.

Every time someone asks me, how my pregnancy was progressing. I politely say, “Oh! Just fine”. But what I actually want to tell them is, “Just fine, if I could ignore the constant backache, constipation, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, aching feet, incontinence, exhaustion, and my fat/ unmanageable body. And of-course, I’m still only halfway there.”

Yeah, I’m a whole 3 months away, and everyday feels like 1453 days. Days get longer, but nights are worse.

First of all, with every aching part of my body and my basketball sized belly, it’s difficult to get in a comfortable position, and if I do get in a comfortable position, falling asleep with a torturous heartburn and a snoring husband, is impossible. The only thought crossing my mind is, “I don’t want to sleep like a baby, I just want to sleep like my husband”. I bought myself a body pillow (snoogle) and I must say, it has been a relief. I get very comfortable and cozy, tucked in my snoogle. However, as soon as I fall asleep, I get this urge to rush to the washroom.

With the baby sitting on my bladder, it makes perfect sense that one would have to pee more often. It’s not that bad and I don’t even mind getting up 10 times in the night. But what pisses me off (pun intended) is that feeling of urgency and then when you get to the bathroom, all you can show for your discomfort is a tiny trickle. What a huge waste of time! And once again, I have to battle my way to a comfortable position, only to be woken up by my tiny bladder in an hour.

To top it all, now I have to be extra careful when laughing, coughing or sneezing for the obvious reason – incontinence (no control over my bladder). There have been times, when we have had to cut our expedition short, coz I had an “incident”. Now, the thought crossing my mind is, “Guys get off so easy”.

It is such a challenge to drag your BIG (which is only going to get bigger) body with you everywhere. Office, grocery store, gas station, and even to the kitchen. From getting yourself out of bed to tying your shoe laces, everything starts feeling like an accomplishment. I had gone for a yoga class the other day, and while yoga is supposed to relax you, I was further stressed throughout because I knew I will not be able to stand up once I sit down. I was constantly praying to god, “Please grant me the mobility necessary to pull myself up from this freakin’ floor”.

Needless to say, now my poor back isn’t able to take all the extra weight that I have gained, and hence my back gives up on me 2 minutes after I wake up. So here is how my day progresses:

8AM (wake up) – 9 AM (showered and dressed) – 10 AM ( Back ache returns) – 11 AM to 10 PM (exhausted, body pains, heartburn) – 10 PM to 8 AM (Toss and Turn, Get up to pee, toss and turn, back aches, toss and turn, get up to pee, wake up)

And the worst part is, it doesn’t end here. This routine continues for 9 whole months. If you know me, you will also know that I love my sleep, and get irritable when I am not well rested. Imagine not getting good sleep for 9 whole months. You can’t blame me if I snap at my husband for snoring all night. It’s almost like, he is making my life even more challenging by putting me in these testing situations. He is preparing me for the worst.

So I don’t get to eat what I want (all I have eaten in the last 6 months is “green” stuff), I can’t wear what I want, I can’t do activities that I want, I see myself getting bigger everyday, I can’t sleep, my organs are moving to different locations to make space for my growing uterus leaving ligament pains… hell, I can’t even sit straight without getting restless… and then if you tell me that I am a lousy driver – what follows isn’t a mood swing, it’s called, “You asked for it dude!”.

A bit of advice for the husbands: For these 9 months, your wife is allowed to be unreasonable. If she asks you to keep the house clean, never say, “But no one is coming to the house today”. If she asks you to be on time, never say, “Do you always have to be so obnoxiously punctual?” If she makes a wrong u-turn, DO NOT point out that she made a mistake. Chances are, she knows she made a mistake, but is in no mood to hear it from someone else who is living an absolute normal life. If she says, she wants to have an occasional brownie, DO NOT remind her of her cavities and root canals. If she can’t go to the gym anymore, do not come home all sweaty and worked out.

And for others around a pregnant woman, never tell her that she has a long way to go. We know how long it is before that foot jammed in our ribcage comes out. I have been dealing with it for 26 weeks. I mean, thanks for not blurting out that I’m as big as a cow, but I really don’t need to be reminded that I’m not at the finish line quite yet.

Also, never tell a pregnant woman that she looks like she is having twins. Really? Gee, what a witty and hilarious comment. Absolutely original. I see what you did there. You took the size of my bump and implied I was actually carrying two babies. Please let me know when your next stand up gig is? I’ll be sure to send my obstetrician there.

Another one that I heard and absolutely cannot stand is, “wait until… the sleepless nights/ the birth/ you have a toddler”. Guys, this isn’t a competition. I’m not trying to outdo you. I just wanted to have a little moan to a friend. Please don’t use my future to scare me. I’m sure sleepless nights are tough, and the toddler years, as well as sending kids off to university, but I’m not doing that right now. I’m pregnant and every so often I would like to be able to have a moan about my aching back/ my clumsiness without being dismissed as naïve.

However, despite all the battles, I do have my cheerful moments when I’m sitting in a meeting and my baby kicks me. I smile instantly, thinking to myself that no one here knows what just happened. My baby said “hi” to me and no one else even heard/ saw a thing. And then I end up smiling like a moron while in serious conversations with my colleagues. That’s fun!

I found this picture online and I thought it was appropriate to share it here:

Aching heart!

When my mind wonders a lot, causing an inability to think of anything else but that one incidence, I resort to jotting my thoughts down. But this time, I am unable to frame sentences, or come up with appropriate adjectives to describe my emotions. I just keep thinking of parents who lost in minutes, what they had been working on for years.

Yesterday I was moved by the horrific incidence. 132 school children killed in the mass massacre by Taliban gunmen. One Hundred and thirty two children. The numbers rose as if, they weren`t children, but a bag of peanuts. Yesterday’s visuals were horrendous, but today`s are worse. Grieving parents gearing up for the funeral of the pieces of their hearts.

As I read their heart wrenching stories, a million thoughts cross my mind. What if that mother would have listened to her son complaining of a head ache and not wanting to go to school? Will she ever be able to live in peace knowing that she pushed her kid to go to school that day, when he didn’t want to?

That 5 year old girl’s first day in school, resulted in her DEATH. Quite the contrary of what her parents had planned for her. Will her parents regret the decision of sending her to school altogether?

As kids, we prayed for heavy rain days so that our schools would declare a “Closed Day”. Would this kid have ever imagined what the after effects of a Closed Day would bring for him? The sole survivor of grade 9. All his classmates are gone. His friends, his foes, that girl he had a secret crush on, that boy always hidden in the back row, his bench mate who wouldn’t share his notes with him, that girl who always told on him, his best friend who marked other fellow students with him, that boy who always shared his lunch with him, his teachers that he liked and those that he didn’t. All of them are gone, and the worst part is, that he saw them all fall. He is left alone, probably with an injured body and a soul. Will he be scared for life?

Those traumatized children who were lucky enough to escape alive, will they ever be able to go to school again? Seeing their classmates being pulled out and shot, their teachers being burnt alive… will they grow up as a normal children?

Yesterday in the news, I saw a picture of a bloody canvas shoe, the size of a palm. Today, there was a blog post on that shoe, on how this man cried seeing that shoe because his daughter wears the same size. This morning when he got his daughter dressed for school and put on her shoes, he couldn’t help but think of that kid with the bloody shoe. This was just one man who jotted down his feelings. I bet there were millions of other parents across the globe, who didn’t have the heart to get their kids dressed for school today.

Today, I am 16 again and am back in my school. Where giggles echo in the hallway, kids are punished outside the classrooms for misbehaving, students are running in between classrooms, pulling pranks on each other, and high fiving each other for successfully bunking their classes. Not in the scariest of my nightmares, can I ever imagine growing up with a visual any different from that. Torn notebooks, pieces of clothing and children’s shoes scattered in the hallways, pair of broken eyeglasses, blood drenched floors, and burnt walls. This is not the image of a school that any child would want to be left with.

With an exceedingly heavy heart and a throat choked up on tears, I extend my condolences to all those who lost their loved ones. And for Taliban, God damn you to the deepest pits of hell. Leave us alone. Not only Pakistan bleeds today, but on this atrocious day, the world bleeds. On this day, humanity bleeds.!