There is this very specific kind of event that exists in my household; in fact, I’m assuming it’s there in most Indian households. Imagine this: picking up a perfectly normal-looking plastic bag and hearing, “Don’t throw that.” You look at your dad, confused, because it’s the most belted plastic bag you’ve seen. “It’s a good bag,” he says. A GOOD BAG?! Not a designer bag, not a reusable tote bag, not even a strong bag, it looks like it can’t even hold half an orange. Just a plastic bag that once carried something expensive from a store and has now been promoted to a permanent household heirloom. In an Indian house, nothing is simply used. Everything has a second life, and sometimes a third.
My dad for instance, has a collection of plastic bags which he’s weirdly protective about and I’m sure it can qualify as a small retail business. It’s an endless loop, there are plastic bags inside plastic bags, which are again inside other plastic bags. It’s like opening those Russian nesting dolls. And all these bags are carefully folded and stored somewhere. All these bags actually occupy a significant amount of space in our house because, apparently, we might need them “someday.” The funny thing is that the “someday” never really comes. We will buy something new, come home with another perfectly good plastic bag, and instead of throwing the old ones away, my dad will proudly add one more to the collection. At this point, I feel that if the apocalypse ever happened, my family would survive for at least six months purely because my dad has been preparing for it with plastic bags for the past 20 years.
And it’s not just bags. There are containers which once held fancy imported cookies, ice cream tubs that have not seen ice cream in years, and sturdy takeaway boxes that have been washed so thoroughly that they can be passed on for at least three other generations. If I ask what’s inside them, they say, “Nothing is inside.” I ask, ” why are we keeping it?” They say, “Useful for later.” USEFUL FOR LATER!? Useful for what? Nobody knows. It is simply useful because it exists. My mom would actually say those containers are more useful in the house than I … but that’s another conversation for a different day.
There is also the sacred category of things we are absolutely not allowed to use at any cost, first because they are labelled as holy, and second because they are too good. Good crockery? For guests. Good towels? Guests. Good bedsheets? Guests. There is always something in the house that is too nice for the people who actually live there. We are just the side characters and caretakers in our house for these objects until the guests arrive with a glowing halo above their heads, worthy enough to use them.
And god forbid those guests actually show up and use them. The second they leave, those fine china plates are washed by hand with some expensive foam soap which smells like lilies from an expensive hotel lobby. It is later dried off with some dedicated micro cloth and is immediately sent back for protection deep inside the showcase cabinet. I don’t even get to sit in the glory of having eaten off porcelain. Before the guests have even crossed our neighbourhood, we are already demoted straight back to the heavy stainless steel thali plates with that signature flower engraving and the permanent dent near the rim.
We live in a self-sustained museum of hoarders governed by extreme “what-if” scenarios. In the loft above the hallway, tucked behind three dusty suitcases, sits a collection of thick black electrical cords that belong to appliances we threw out before I was born. There are assorted plastic ice cream spoons sitting in the cutlery drawer, you know, just in case 150 people come to our house to eat ice cream.
We squeeze every drop of existence out of our possessions. One day, party wear becomes a nightdress, then becomes a Holi dress, and then a dusting rag. Nothing is ever discarded at its peak; it goes through every level of household hierarchy. Nothing ever truly dies here; it just changes state until it physically dissolves into atomic particles.