Two points in time

Notes on time and telling

Remember that IG/FB trend from a few years ago? Then and Now. Some version of this is always doing the rounds. At the time people were putting up their pictures from 10 years ago alongside their recent ones. How gorgeous and youthful we were, or if one is lucky, how time stood still and we still look the same. It is poignant when we look at ourselves in that one second frame of the 220 crore seconds that we might, on an average, live for.

Around that time I read an acquaintance’s post about something like this. A young woman under 30. She shared a picture of her even younger days. Already impressive in her current avtaar she talked about how amazing she looked back then and how she would not turn back the clock for anything. She shared (I summarise and rephrase from memory) that she looked good and put together but she was anything but that. She was not eating, was dependent on substances and no one complimenting her then knew what she was going through. So no thank you. Not turning back the clock for her. It is easy for the world to flatten us. We are easiest to consume that way. But sometimes it is just our selective memory. What are we missing when we look at the before and after as standalone points in the timelines of our life.

I do romanticise my younger days, while being very happy with the now. Then, when the fleshy curve of the waist in a saree would make me sigh and the compliments for the kohl lined eyes and the jewellery did my confidence a lot of favours. I was prone to forgetting that I was so tightly wound with anxiety so coded into my being that deep breaths felt impossible and almost threatening. I had a series of episodes resembling panic attacks. Much of this showed up as an irate-boisterous-angry-but-spirited-justice-seeking-self-righteous young woman. I like to forget once in a while what that youthful beauty and maddening zeal also contained.

The trap of the after

We are urged, trained, brainwashed to brush past complexity and look for moulds and cliches when we look at someone/something/ourselves. Something like the get fit, lose weight industry imagery. The before and after. The bulges, flab and sags giving way to toning, narrowing, and other kinds of visual health. My gawd she was heavier than I and look at her transformation/ He was just like me and look at him today/There is hope for me. The after pictures are the resplendent phoenixes emerging from the ashes of a younger, unhealthier self. If I work hard enough, I too can burn to ashes this uncooperative body and from the ashes a renewed person in body and mind will emerge. Marketing cannot hold complexity fairly. The fleshier plumper ‘before’ has many more stories to tell, than - main xy kilo ka tha. High on life college nights, falling in love, making a living, figuring out life….endless these facets are.

As we skim through our feeds, sometimes holding complexity and nuance is too much. This before and after game presents a person at two points in their lives to us and we immediately are drawn to a comparison. We must pick one. As though it does not hold within it the other!

Lately this has been playing on my mind for other reasons.

नसें

My sister (Preeti) and I finally started something we’ve talked about for years. A small furniture label: Thadi¹. She’s been an interior designer for over two decades, designing homes, building custom pieces. But this project of restoring old, pre-loved furniture is different. It is slow work with each piece passing through so many skilled hands in a workshop. I’m still learning to move at its pace and breathe between the gaps as one craftsman completes his work and the next begins.

We did think for a hot second about showcasing “before and after” pictures. The lure is real. The thought was barely articulated when both of us instinctively recoiled. We still placed the images side by side to take a dekho. We saw the same trap. The “before” with its hurried photos and faded varnish, dusty torn upholstery looked tired. Unremarkable. The “after” was well-lit, styled, confidently shot in our home. That split second comparison would only serve to glorify the present and flatten a history.

For instance, this one pair of chairs we found and restored. We found it at a second-hand furniture dealer’s godown, painted a deep mustard. What leapt at us were chairs with a comfy design and great bones and grain. The body was painted and polished over multiple times. When they got to our workshop, there was much dancing involved and loving glances. The paint was peeled back, the body sanded down till the grain of the wood was unclogged and could breathe. It took a few days. Only then were they stained and polished. They passed through many hands. Side by side, those images would just spark immediate judgement on the past use, taste and class aesthetic. In other cases, the present would need to be so starkly different from the past to impress. Some of our pieces didn't need complete overhauls, just some care. In some cases, the before and the after are not too far from each other.

While working with carpenters and polishers over the last few months, I reconnected with phrases I had known of many, many years ago but forgotten over time. What we know as the grain of wood in English is referred to in hindi as - रेशे reshe (fibre) / नसें nasen (vein/nerve). It feels so accurate. Working on old pieces feels like clearing the blocked nerve endings or the veins to help life flow. It is almost as refreshing as looking at trees post the rain. They are the same trees they were and yet a bit more.

Thadi is the little something Preeti and I started. We make furniture and design spaces-Yes. But we started this separate practice because we also wanted to work on refurbishing wooden furniture. It has been the way we have furnished our homes for many, many years. It was the way our pieces went on to live with others over the years. It is a way of existing that briefly slipped away from me and I am slowly returning to. Come take a look.
 
Website: www.thadi.store  
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/the.thadi.store
Facebook (Just starting here: https://www.facebook.com/The.Thadi.Store)

If this brought up a memory, of a piece you’ve lived with, refurbished, inherited from friends or family, or something that has a story to tell, please share! Maybe your writing desk and you have a story to tell?

As part of our Objects of Our Affection (already live on Instagram), we’re sharing short reflections/Micro essays/Poems (around 250 -300 words is great) and maybe a photo or two. We hope to keep sharing this on Thadi handles and plan to send out once in 8 weeks compilations here on Substack.

Yes ! Excerpts from existing pieces too please!

Write to us at hellothadi@gmail.com, if and when it feels right.

1. Thadi, means wood. The Th is pronounced the way Remo Fernandes pronounces the tha in the “Pyaar tho hona hi tha” (listen closely at 42-43 seconds). ————तड़ी. Currently, we only deliver pieces in Delhi NCR currently. Design support -kahin bhi!