Things Thai

Sunday, March 28, 2010

You never know the treasures that you might find at any given random moment. One such moment was when I was standing listlessly staring into space as a friend went about purposefully buying her grocery. Something catches my eye & the next minute I'm bargaining the price of this book all the while trying to not look like I will pay anything to take this find back home. My random morning had gotten transformed. Imagine, travelling all the way to Thailand and devouring its exquisite handcrafted treasures complete with detailed explanations. Simply by slipping open the covers of what I held in my hand. Oh, the gods are kind.
Buddha's, dragons, elephants, jewellery, monastries, scripture cabinets, thai costumes are just a few things among the many that get detailed mention in this book.

The painstaking procedure of embedding mother of pearl into lacquer is explained in detail. Just reading it is exhausting. The book concludes that understandably such laborious techniques are not used anymore.
Thailand loved its 'paan' as well it would seem. And betel chewing was very much part of the cultural past of Thailand with all its attendent paraphernalia, some of it famed for its very high order craftsmanship.
Traditional Thai household life was spent mostly on the floor. This dressing table is clearly designed to use from floor-level.



There are many parallells to the Indian way of life and decorating that I find in this study, which I shouldn't find surprising. This is probably not the last you will see of this book. If I feel very South East Asian, I will quickly dip into the this book and share some of it with you as well.

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