Warmth and joy of knitting during winters
It's the season of loving and giving warmth and understanding, and dipping temperatures. How are you spending it? Folks get around bonfires and share tales, or dress up in tiny skirts and head to afternoon barbecues and brunches in the sun. People bake to feel happy, or play a sport to warm up. In my opinion, we don't praise hand knitting enough. Here's a humble ode to a timeless, if undervalued winter hobby.
Knitting is therapeutic. World disasters or personal peeves, failing economy or the Delhi chief minister's new city travel blueprints, spouse problems or a tyrannical boss - is there anything that is stressing you out? Studies have acknowledged the role of knitting in helping prevent stress, manage pain and depression and boost the body's immune system. So if the world is falling apart, be zen - calm the f**k down and knit.
It's addictive. The repetition of purl and knit, the needles flying as stitch follows stitch through manipulation of yarn till a row is finished and the next one presents itself, is mesmerising, hypnotic and satisfying and known to release "feel good" hormones associated with activities such as gymming or sex.
When the bitter cold is upon us between mid-December to mid-January, as it is in northern India now, knitting can be the closest humans get to experiencing hibernation - the natural recourse of some species in the animal world. Get essential supplies of food, water and wool, and conserve energy by holing up. Be a knitting bear.
It exercises the fingers, improving dexterity. Now you may see no use for nimble fingers other than hooking them into jars to procure tiny sugar-coated biscuits, but you may want to hold that thought and revisit it when you're approaching the arthritis years.
Unlike texting and playing a game on your mobile, knitting when in company is not considered a rude habit. In fact it can be a community activity, a means to build social bonds. Knitting clubs have been popular since the mummys and the aunties sat together on a charpoy in the sun, the sounds of clashing needles forming an orchestra, interrupted by conversations on domestic life or world events. In a more modern context, add EDM music on the iPod and chilled white wine to the scenario. Watch the fingers fly.
It is third wave feminist! Germaine Greer has called knitting "heroic pointlessness" as a reminder of the fact that "women have frittered their lives away stitching things for which there is no demand". It is a reference to the domestic status imposed on women traditionally where as homemakers and caregivers they would selflessly spend their time knitting for family, with little appreciation of the labour. But third wave feminists see it slightly differently - instead of rejecting it outright as a reminder of the time we were domestic slaves, they want to reclaim knitting and give it the respect and value that previous generation of knitters were denied. Seize the needles.
Men can reclaim it too. Knitting was initially an all-male occupation. Then came the knitting machine and hand knitting was practised by rural folks or as a leisure activity by wealthy women, the kind of women Greer refers to when she terms knitting "heroic pointlessness". There is no reason why men can't try their hand at it today, while watching a cricket match for instance; it may temper their adrenalin flow while they watch the match and save a few TV sets from being smashed in case of their team's defeat.
Knitting is mobile. You can pull the needles out of a chic little tote when in between tasks at work (though carrying it to the board meeting might still be a bit radical), or drop your wool ball to the floor and proceed with the knitting when awaiting your turn at the dentist, or when travelling around the city in the car. It can go from power knitting to timepass activity, depending on the situation.
In public spaces, the knitting needles you carry in your bag can double up as a weapon in case of threat or danger. No, I'm just kidding. No actually, I'm not.
It's anti-intellectual. Let's admit it. In the short time we have in our hectic and overworked lives for leisure activities, we try to pack in something that will inform our intellect. Those who can write, paint, sing or direct do so, the rest of us spend our time reading, keeping abreast of art or music, or watching films and engaging in other such intellectual pursuits in order to add something to our lives, and share it with others. While this remains important, knitting is the activity uniting the creators of content and consumers of content. Everything you knit, from the form, to the colour, to the combinations and the patterns and ornamentation, will have a little bit of you. You are an artist. Your art will live on.
It's a brain puzzle! It may look like child's play, but it is deceptive. There are many permutations-combinations to consider when knitting, from yarn weight to diameter of stitches, which affects tension of the knitted yarn and the elasticity of fabric. There are dropped stitches to pick up to keep you alert even as you daydream as you knit. In addition, there is proportion and scale of the fabric to be knitted to consider, depending on the form attempted that can have you back in economics class studying cause and effect graphs. It keeps the brain active and is one of the leisure activities linked to reducing the risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. Be sharp as needles right into old age!
It's cheerful. When mornings on end are cold and grey and smoggy and foggy and the sun hasn't come out in days, there are stripes of wine red to add to the snow white fabric you're knitting, or you may introduce a line or two of yellow in your grey, just for cheer. It's simple, but it's uplifting. You can create your own little bit of sunshine.
It's durable and everlasting. You can knit for a lover, making it literally a gift of warmth and love. You can knit for a friend who will cherish a handmade gift for life more than anything the shiny malls can offer. You can knit for household help and their children, perhaps a kinder act of everyday charity than passing on hand-me-down clothes. Or you can just knit for yourself because the one thing life will teach you is who is more deserving of the results of your love and labour than yourself!
"I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember," says Evelyn Waugh in his novel Brideshead Revisited.
Knitting is a good place to bury these "something precious" which life throws up, embedded in loops secured by thread, or safely hidden in the needle connecting one ball of yarn to another to avoid the formation of knots. There are secret places there in that piece of knitting, moments of life and strands of thought along with the yarn that only you know of. Embrace the flaws that only you can see, and the rough patches that only you know you tided over, or the joys that dotted the texture. Put them down in the wool, to pull it out again one winter many years on, and remember...
Beginner's guide to knitting
1. Go to the yarn shop in the Sadar Bazar near you.
2. Purchase 300g of wool of your liking and choice of colour/colours.
3. Take a pair of size 7 needles.
4. Cast 70 stitches on the needles.
5. Begin knitting in either purl or knit stitch of your choice. Proceed till the wool finishes. You will be the proud owner of a large-sized muffler.