No. Not referring to Robert Downey Jr.
I do iron a dress pant or kurti ever so often. But last week I volunteered to iron two 10 feet wide circular table cloths for my daughter's school event. The one hour literally broke my back and made me think of the iron men in my life.
The first iron man (iron wala or the 'isthri' guy) I knew was Sigaamani. I remember him and his cart in the RBI quarters campus. There were been countless mornings before school when I would run to his cart with my crumpled white uniform shirt. Sigaamani would sprinkle some water on my shirt and proceed to smooth out the wrinkles. I would watch as the water sizzled and the wrinkles on my shirt magically disappeared under the weight of the hot coal-filled iron box. I would walk home smelling the steam on my freshly pressed shirt. How he managed to iron garment after garment under the blazing Madras sun day after day, I will never know. Here I was nursing my sore back after just one hour.
When we moved into our new home, our new iron man whose name I don't know had a small hole in wall store at the end of our street. My dad used to take the crumpled clothes in a bundle and bring them back in neat stacks, becoming very well acquainted with the iron man in the process. At some point we owned our own rust-orange colored iron box that I used to iron only the bottom twelve inches or so of my salwar (why iron the part that was going to be invisible under the kameez!) although a majority of my clothes were still made wrinkle-free by the iron man.
On the the evening of my wedding reception as I stood with my husband meeting and greeting friends and family, an elderly gentleman in a white shirt and dhoti walked towards us with a gift envelope. As he handed over the envelope to me, I was eager to introduce him to my husband but my memory completely failed me. I said to him - "I am sorry but I don't recognize you. Can you please tell me who you are?" He smiled shyly and said 'It's okay' and tried to walk away. But I was not one to let go easily and insisted that he tell me who he was. As he stood around looking trapped, my dad swooped in on the stage, put his arm around the man's shoulder and announced - "This here is my good friend". At that instance I remembered who he was and saw that his eyes were wet.
The last time I was in Chennai, I had the luxury of having my kurtis ironed by our iron man, the same one that my dad's gesture melted.
I do iron a dress pant or kurti ever so often. But last week I volunteered to iron two 10 feet wide circular table cloths for my daughter's school event. The one hour literally broke my back and made me think of the iron men in my life.
The first iron man (iron wala or the 'isthri' guy) I knew was Sigaamani. I remember him and his cart in the RBI quarters campus. There were been countless mornings before school when I would run to his cart with my crumpled white uniform shirt. Sigaamani would sprinkle some water on my shirt and proceed to smooth out the wrinkles. I would watch as the water sizzled and the wrinkles on my shirt magically disappeared under the weight of the hot coal-filled iron box. I would walk home smelling the steam on my freshly pressed shirt. How he managed to iron garment after garment under the blazing Madras sun day after day, I will never know. Here I was nursing my sore back after just one hour.
When we moved into our new home, our new iron man whose name I don't know had a small hole in wall store at the end of our street. My dad used to take the crumpled clothes in a bundle and bring them back in neat stacks, becoming very well acquainted with the iron man in the process. At some point we owned our own rust-orange colored iron box that I used to iron only the bottom twelve inches or so of my salwar (why iron the part that was going to be invisible under the kameez!) although a majority of my clothes were still made wrinkle-free by the iron man.
On the the evening of my wedding reception as I stood with my husband meeting and greeting friends and family, an elderly gentleman in a white shirt and dhoti walked towards us with a gift envelope. As he handed over the envelope to me, I was eager to introduce him to my husband but my memory completely failed me. I said to him - "I am sorry but I don't recognize you. Can you please tell me who you are?" He smiled shyly and said 'It's okay' and tried to walk away. But I was not one to let go easily and insisted that he tell me who he was. As he stood around looking trapped, my dad swooped in on the stage, put his arm around the man's shoulder and announced - "This here is my good friend". At that instance I remembered who he was and saw that his eyes were wet.
The last time I was in Chennai, I had the luxury of having my kurtis ironed by our iron man, the same one that my dad's gesture melted.
