The Old Order Changeth
I have no idea whether one gets attached to in-animate objects or not. I have heard of people, storing away old things in the attic even when they know for sure that the thing has lived its full life and that it may not be of any use to them in future. Purely sentimental reasons I presume. This must be the same reason why a philatelist collects stamps or an antique collector goes around looking for an article that is genuinely old. Perhaps the smell of dust collected in the pores and crevices of old buildings is what stimulates the historians? Do the ancient sites excavated have a story that can only be heard by the archaeologist? It is not easy to find an answer to these questions. Human beings are such that every individual is unique in some way or the other and therefore what appeals to one may not appeal to the other.
So many times, we just don’t want to part with something because we develop a sense of affection for it. Someone with a rational mind may find the concept very funny-after all how can one explain if someone keeps a paper cutting that is old and faded, simply because this was the paper cutting where the person’s engagement was announced? Someone had won his/her first tennis championship in school and therefore decides to keep the racket safely tucked away in the attic even though the strings have been bitten off by the rats and the racket handle grip has been gnawed away by the cockroaches!! We have often seen cricketers grab a piece of stump after winning a match. It becomes a memento for them, a reminder of that important event in the cricketer’s life.
Indians, in particular, are said to be frugal and spend thrift by nature. It was a whole generation comprising of our fathers and fore-fathers who had no idea of globalisation and therefore were not lured by the culture of consumerism. There were few brands to choose from and “Be Indian, buy Indian” was the mantra that they were constantly bombarded with. The shop shelves were not overflowing with cheap and attractively packaged goods, vying to grab a piece of their attention and so our forefathers and fathers thought it best to keep the money safely locked away in banks and spend only on the necessities of life. Jewellery, and articles of value get passed on from one generation to the other. My daughter has a frock that has been passed on to her by her mother…my wife used to wear the same when she was my daughter’s age. Now that my daughter has outgrown it, my wife has kept it safely stored in a suitcase with naphthalene balls packed in its folds! She hopes that the same can be worn by her grand-daughter some day!
Consumerism had not taken roots in the Indian society till a few decades ago. Barring a limited number of people who could spend as per their will, the majority was content to spend their hard earned money on essential commodities only. Thus it was not natural for our parents to eat outside every weekend and nor were they very eager to spend money on buying a TV or a refrigerator. Our parents used to stock the money, save it up in the banks so that they could afford to buy a house after retirement and also maybe see off their children in marriage. White goods like refrigerators, TVs etc were meant to be purchase of a life-time. They were supposed to be items of luxury and therefore were meant to serve for the whole life-time of the buyer. There was no concept of re-cycling or exchanging the old article with something brand new.
Of course, those were the days when families had not gone nuclear and so there were many more mouths to be fed and many more bodies to be clothed. Such was the binding of the joint family that the earning member was supposed to give away his salary to the elders who ran the joint family. The money thus collected was used to run the large household. Everyone contributed according to their means and often there was an un-wed sister or an unemployed brother, who had to be cared for because he/she was part of the family. There was practically nothing left for indulging in the luxuries of life.
Changing the car, refrigerator or other lifestyle goods can be described in some ways as indulging in luxury. Take for example, the television set that adorns almost every drawing room of an Indian house. It used to be a luxury long time back. Also a thing to be proudly displayed to have in possession. Today, it is no longer a luxury but it still is a means used by the possessor to showcase his/her status. Its position in the drawing room also means that the possessor of the good tries to display his/her status symbol. This is the reason why someone wants to buy the latest in the line of LCD TVs and someone wants to change his/her mobile phone every year. Being seen with the latest is fashionable.
So when my wife decided that it was high time we replaced our TV, I reacted immediately! I belong to that old school where our grandfathers and fathers had learnt their lessons. For me, even in-animate objects deserve to be treated with pride and respect. Change the TV!! It was as if someone had asked me to part with half of my hard earned wealth! The TV, according to me, stood for all those wonderful years of my youth, those days of struggle when the desires were unlimited and the mode of fulfilling those desires and wants were very limited. It was one of the very few things left with me that brought back memories of a Spartan household in some remote village of Orissa! I still remember the day when the TV landed into our house fifteen years back. I don’t recall the price I had to pay in those days but it certainly was a hefty sum. The decision at that point of time was whether we should buy the TV or whether we should try and get a sofa set. The bank balance was at an all time low because we had just invested in a Godrej Almirah. Besides we were also thinking of taking a week long trip to Calcutta. A sofa set was more of a necessity because, our drawing room looked very bare and the occasional visitors who dropped in had to sit on the bamboo mats purchased from the local weekly market, called “haat”. It did not matter if the guests were our friends but if it was someone outside our friend circle, then it became a matter of slight embarrassment on my wife’s part. So that was definitely a more pressing need of the hour. However, the tide turned in favour of the TV when my friend indicated that if the room had a TV, part of the attention of the visitors would be diverted and therefore they would not mind the discomfort of sitting on the floor. Besides, the newspaper vendor (He was the man Friday for all we youngsters in the camp. Anything that needed to be brought from the city- a world beyond the village boundary, he was there to get it, at a slightly inflated price, for you!) was willing to take the money in 2-3 instalments. That also meant we did not have to sacrifice our trip to Calcutta. It was a win-win situation. The Sofa set could wait for another 3-4 months.
So the TV happened to become a member of our house-hold. We were proud owners of the same and it became a companion to us, a sort of filler when me and my wife ran out of topics for discussion. Both of us were young and newly married and so had lots of interesting things to talk of and lots of plans to chalk out. In the village of Sukinda, where there was hardly anything by way of entertainment, the TV ensured that we did not get bored of seeing each other for long spans of time. Had we been living in a city, there would have been other activities to be involved in. In the mining village there was nothing but the officers club where we could go together for some entertainment. So the TV was a much needed addition to the household. My wife loved it and my daughter worshipped it. She quickly picked up the odd jingle that caught her fancy and began to entertain us by repeating the same in her own child-like style. The TV became a convenient way of distracting my daughter’s attention when she refused to eat! There was one particular advertisement jingle that always left my daughter spell bound and open mouthed in wonder. My wife used to wait for that jingle to come on the TV; the moment it appeared and my daughter’s mouth opened, she dumped the food into her mouth. Mission accomplished with minimal resistance!
The TV acted as our link to the outside world. In the remote corner of Orissa, where majority of the civilisation was still grappling with the basic needs of life, the TV, coupled with the dish antenna, enabled us to leap-frog into a different world and fulfilled the higher needs in our hierarchy. Without it, we would have probably got entrapped in a time bubble while the world outside would have moved ahead. Then when it would have been time to step out, our situation would have been just like Rip Van Winkle, waking up from a long slumber and loosing all sense of time.
Then there was a time when our house was raided by a thief in the dead of the night. Probably their intention was to take away the TV but my daughter’s shrill cries for food ( though we still feel that the child’s sixth sense had something to do with her crying out loud) scared the thief away and he managed to escape only with the remote of the TV. Till today, I am not sure what the thief meant to do with just the remote. I would love to find out the price at which he managed to sell just the remote! However, he did deal a sever blow to us. Without a remote control, we felt that we had been saddled with a crippled child which could neither be thrown away nor could be utilised to its full potential. We did not have the means to buy a new TV as during those days it was impossible to exchange the old for the new. So we lived with it till we found a new remote from a shop in Jamshedpur. It had taken us almost 2-3 years before we could find a replacement remote for our TV!
The TV had migrated to Calcutta along with us when we got transferred. In Calcutta, we modified it to ensure that the TV became current with the times. Even when it got damaged, we decided to repair it rather than replace it with a new one. But I guess, the time had probably come to say good-bye. One of our neighbours had one day made a casual remark about how old-fashioned our TV was.
So many times, we just don’t want to part with something because we develop a sense of affection for it. Someone with a rational mind may find the concept very funny-after all how can one explain if someone keeps a paper cutting that is old and faded, simply because this was the paper cutting where the person’s engagement was announced? Someone had won his/her first tennis championship in school and therefore decides to keep the racket safely tucked away in the attic even though the strings have been bitten off by the rats and the racket handle grip has been gnawed away by the cockroaches!! We have often seen cricketers grab a piece of stump after winning a match. It becomes a memento for them, a reminder of that important event in the cricketer’s life.
Indians, in particular, are said to be frugal and spend thrift by nature. It was a whole generation comprising of our fathers and fore-fathers who had no idea of globalisation and therefore were not lured by the culture of consumerism. There were few brands to choose from and “Be Indian, buy Indian” was the mantra that they were constantly bombarded with. The shop shelves were not overflowing with cheap and attractively packaged goods, vying to grab a piece of their attention and so our forefathers and fathers thought it best to keep the money safely locked away in banks and spend only on the necessities of life. Jewellery, and articles of value get passed on from one generation to the other. My daughter has a frock that has been passed on to her by her mother…my wife used to wear the same when she was my daughter’s age. Now that my daughter has outgrown it, my wife has kept it safely stored in a suitcase with naphthalene balls packed in its folds! She hopes that the same can be worn by her grand-daughter some day!
Consumerism had not taken roots in the Indian society till a few decades ago. Barring a limited number of people who could spend as per their will, the majority was content to spend their hard earned money on essential commodities only. Thus it was not natural for our parents to eat outside every weekend and nor were they very eager to spend money on buying a TV or a refrigerator. Our parents used to stock the money, save it up in the banks so that they could afford to buy a house after retirement and also maybe see off their children in marriage. White goods like refrigerators, TVs etc were meant to be purchase of a life-time. They were supposed to be items of luxury and therefore were meant to serve for the whole life-time of the buyer. There was no concept of re-cycling or exchanging the old article with something brand new.
Of course, those were the days when families had not gone nuclear and so there were many more mouths to be fed and many more bodies to be clothed. Such was the binding of the joint family that the earning member was supposed to give away his salary to the elders who ran the joint family. The money thus collected was used to run the large household. Everyone contributed according to their means and often there was an un-wed sister or an unemployed brother, who had to be cared for because he/she was part of the family. There was practically nothing left for indulging in the luxuries of life.
Changing the car, refrigerator or other lifestyle goods can be described in some ways as indulging in luxury. Take for example, the television set that adorns almost every drawing room of an Indian house. It used to be a luxury long time back. Also a thing to be proudly displayed to have in possession. Today, it is no longer a luxury but it still is a means used by the possessor to showcase his/her status. Its position in the drawing room also means that the possessor of the good tries to display his/her status symbol. This is the reason why someone wants to buy the latest in the line of LCD TVs and someone wants to change his/her mobile phone every year. Being seen with the latest is fashionable.
So when my wife decided that it was high time we replaced our TV, I reacted immediately! I belong to that old school where our grandfathers and fathers had learnt their lessons. For me, even in-animate objects deserve to be treated with pride and respect. Change the TV!! It was as if someone had asked me to part with half of my hard earned wealth! The TV, according to me, stood for all those wonderful years of my youth, those days of struggle when the desires were unlimited and the mode of fulfilling those desires and wants were very limited. It was one of the very few things left with me that brought back memories of a Spartan household in some remote village of Orissa! I still remember the day when the TV landed into our house fifteen years back. I don’t recall the price I had to pay in those days but it certainly was a hefty sum. The decision at that point of time was whether we should buy the TV or whether we should try and get a sofa set. The bank balance was at an all time low because we had just invested in a Godrej Almirah. Besides we were also thinking of taking a week long trip to Calcutta. A sofa set was more of a necessity because, our drawing room looked very bare and the occasional visitors who dropped in had to sit on the bamboo mats purchased from the local weekly market, called “haat”. It did not matter if the guests were our friends but if it was someone outside our friend circle, then it became a matter of slight embarrassment on my wife’s part. So that was definitely a more pressing need of the hour. However, the tide turned in favour of the TV when my friend indicated that if the room had a TV, part of the attention of the visitors would be diverted and therefore they would not mind the discomfort of sitting on the floor. Besides, the newspaper vendor (He was the man Friday for all we youngsters in the camp. Anything that needed to be brought from the city- a world beyond the village boundary, he was there to get it, at a slightly inflated price, for you!) was willing to take the money in 2-3 instalments. That also meant we did not have to sacrifice our trip to Calcutta. It was a win-win situation. The Sofa set could wait for another 3-4 months.
So the TV happened to become a member of our house-hold. We were proud owners of the same and it became a companion to us, a sort of filler when me and my wife ran out of topics for discussion. Both of us were young and newly married and so had lots of interesting things to talk of and lots of plans to chalk out. In the village of Sukinda, where there was hardly anything by way of entertainment, the TV ensured that we did not get bored of seeing each other for long spans of time. Had we been living in a city, there would have been other activities to be involved in. In the mining village there was nothing but the officers club where we could go together for some entertainment. So the TV was a much needed addition to the household. My wife loved it and my daughter worshipped it. She quickly picked up the odd jingle that caught her fancy and began to entertain us by repeating the same in her own child-like style. The TV became a convenient way of distracting my daughter’s attention when she refused to eat! There was one particular advertisement jingle that always left my daughter spell bound and open mouthed in wonder. My wife used to wait for that jingle to come on the TV; the moment it appeared and my daughter’s mouth opened, she dumped the food into her mouth. Mission accomplished with minimal resistance!
The TV acted as our link to the outside world. In the remote corner of Orissa, where majority of the civilisation was still grappling with the basic needs of life, the TV, coupled with the dish antenna, enabled us to leap-frog into a different world and fulfilled the higher needs in our hierarchy. Without it, we would have probably got entrapped in a time bubble while the world outside would have moved ahead. Then when it would have been time to step out, our situation would have been just like Rip Van Winkle, waking up from a long slumber and loosing all sense of time.
Then there was a time when our house was raided by a thief in the dead of the night. Probably their intention was to take away the TV but my daughter’s shrill cries for food ( though we still feel that the child’s sixth sense had something to do with her crying out loud) scared the thief away and he managed to escape only with the remote of the TV. Till today, I am not sure what the thief meant to do with just the remote. I would love to find out the price at which he managed to sell just the remote! However, he did deal a sever blow to us. Without a remote control, we felt that we had been saddled with a crippled child which could neither be thrown away nor could be utilised to its full potential. We did not have the means to buy a new TV as during those days it was impossible to exchange the old for the new. So we lived with it till we found a new remote from a shop in Jamshedpur. It had taken us almost 2-3 years before we could find a replacement remote for our TV!
The TV had migrated to Calcutta along with us when we got transferred. In Calcutta, we modified it to ensure that the TV became current with the times. Even when it got damaged, we decided to repair it rather than replace it with a new one. But I guess, the time had probably come to say good-bye. One of our neighbours had one day made a casual remark about how old-fashioned our TV was.
What is back-dated has no place in our lives these days! Even old age homes are so much in demand these days for this very reason. So we finally traded the old TV for a brand new LCD TV. The shop sent people to install the new one and take away the old TV. They came and unceremoniously hoisted the old instrument on their back and took it away.
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