THE BROKEN SCISSORS (Humor; Childhood nostalgia)

This happened 40 years ago.

My elementary school was on a holiday spree. There was a reason for it. A new annexe to our humble school building was under construction and it was nearing completion. The inauguration was scheduled some time in the following week and a local VIP had already been invited to do the inauguration. As the last minute construction work was hectic, the school was declared holiday for a couple of days.

It was in this period, the sewing machine arrived at our home.

The arrival was an event of excitement, curiosity and novelty all stitched together. Our father, an embodiment of thrift bordering on stinginess, opening out his purse and spending a hefty two hundred and fifty rupees to buy a "Usha" sewing machine was a matter of huge surprise to me those days.

But I could understand subsequently as I grew up that it was a master stroke of common-sense mingled with sound economic sense. With his eldest daughter aged 20 sitting unmarried at home (which was normally a matter of extreme concern those days when the marriageable age of a girl hovered around 18 in India) and the next daughter standing in the queue at 17, what else could have been a better decision to keep their minds engaged in a creative and remunerative activity, safely distracted from nuptial dreams?

Barely 2 months before the arrival of the sewing machine, my eldest sister, who had demonstrable creative skills running in her blood, had been to Neyveli for a month's stay with our uncle's family. There she had utilized her time to learn tailoring - stitching of blouses for women and frocks for girls from a friendly neighbor.

The machine arrived in a van along with a mechanic. A group of kids, mostly my friends, swarmed around inside our house, where the mechanic was methodically assembling the machine- joining the two legs to the upper table, fitting the pedal and the wheel, fitting the machine at the top and connecting the leather belt.

Over the next 1 hour, he gave instructions to my sisters as to how to fix the bobbin, how to wind the thread into the spool of the bobbin, how to adjust the pitch and other dos and don'ts. I was naturally inquisitive enough to crane my neck in to gather the bits and pieces of the technically curious stuff.

After drinking a cup of coffee offered by mother and accepting a miserly one-rupee tip from my father with a tell-tale expression of dissatisfaction, the mechanic departed

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