I love running errands with my grandmom. She only shops at old family-owned businesses she's been frequenting for over 60 years and I see all these hidden parts of Delhi I never knew existed. Bright and early on this Friday morning, Nani decided she wants to knit a peach-colored baby-sweater for one of my dearest friends in the States (she's having a baby-girl). So we went to "Greenways."
Greenways used to be a yarn-shop filled with rows and rows of every kind of wool, stacks of knitting books, and boxes of buttons of every shape, size, and color. Today, it's mostly a women's clothing store and the wool section has been relegated to a few boxes upstairs, tucked away on a bottom shelf and lovingly looked after by a gentleman named Prem Singh ("Prem" means "love" in hindi), who can tell the quality of wool by sight because he's been working here for over 45 years.
Prem Singh is a small gnome of a man who seems grouchy and mean until he smiles, and then he looks like a shy, little boy. He and Nani swapped notes on how Greenways has changed over the years. "Nobody knits anymore," Nani tutted. Prem Singh nodded, "There's only one company left that still sells us wool...all the others are now making sweaters or importing clothes." He showed Nani and I old, faded knitting books he's saved from the 1950s, filled with British models wearing flower-patterned sweaters. He took out a tattered box of buttons he's carefully acquired from various people and places, "I got this one from a Japanese sailor," he said proudly pointing to a shiny square button in the box. Listening to him and Nani talk, I felt like I'd entered another world filled with stories and history... a world I could visit and revisit forever.
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