What the middle class Indian homemaker can teach us about recycling
Just the other morning as I was discarding emptied milk pouches, my memory time-travelled to my school days. Many of my classmates would get their lunch packed neatly in these emptied pouches cleaned and dried painstakingly by their moms. Sometimes not so successfully when the classroom would start reeking of a strange aroma of mooli and stale milk during lunch-break. I was terrified that my own mom would find out and pack lunch in milk-pouches or other scary things like magazine paper, another favourite of moms.
Thankfully, she never did.
She was scarily frugal and an obsessive hoarder. She still is. We have an entire loft, the length of English Channel, filled with gifts received during Diwali since world war II. After marriage, when I would move houses (rather frequently) and was about to give away, say a couch, or a Godrej almirah, she’d insist on keeping them in her house, because, well, how can a respectable middle class family discard a family member.
When Baba sold off our first car, a Premier Padmini, she shed tears for it. Since it could not start without a firm push by our friendly neighbours, it had acquired notoriety in our neighbourhood, especially in winters. Every morning when he’d try to start the car, all our neighbours would run inside their homes and shut their doors and windows. I am sure they had nicknamed her "Pushpawati" and broken coconuts in the temple when we finally bought a car that could start on its own.
Gifts were unwrapped layer by layer, with great care as if we were detonating a bomb, because nobody in their right mind goes to a shop to buy wrapping papers when you can get them for free with the gift. So I was rather overjoyed to find out that my mom shared this habit with Indira Gandhi who would obsessively save gift-wrapping papers. Since I wish to hold on to the habits of the exalted, I save gifts bags, paper bags that once brought home saris, shirts and dresses, for a rainy day. So my hired helps get sweaters, shawls, trousers that we no longer wear in Zara and Satya Paul bags.
Long before pharmaceutical whizkids came out with appetite suppressants, my Maa figured out her own, the one with no side-effects and absolutely free. All she needed to do was utter these three magical words – shesh korte hobey (we have to finish this).
Food was never relished and eaten at our house, it was meant to be finished, and boy, did it set our appetite on fire.
And even though you may have hated this trait of hers with a vengeance, genes have a way of ensuring history repeats itself. So when I tell RayMan that we have to "shesh korte hobey" the cauliflower sabzi before it mutates into something else, he simply rolls his eyes. Not that I haven’t tried hard to detonate the time bomb ticking inside me which is doing its best to turn me into my mom. I give away clothes, crockery, furniture with so much earnestness that sometimes I end up giving away stuff that we actually need. The need that remains dormant for years but arises exactly 10 days after I have donated stuff.
We only realise how weird our parents were once we move away from them. When I was recently visiting my parents, I found it rather quaint that my mom chose to keep only the TV room light on, while the rest of the house was enveloped in darkness and gloom. But as kids it was pretty normal for us to sweat even when the fan was in perfect working condition, but was still switched off because Maa had not officially declared it was summer. When it came to sensing, if we had left the room without switching off all the six electrical points off, she was quite the clairvoyant. If we managed to keep even one switch on, she’d come running faster than Usain Bolt to scold us first and then switch off that electric point with flourish.
We also realise that this weirdness is an Indian middle class phenomenon when we sit and share childhood stories with our friends. And it was kind of justified considering the kind of upbringing that had seen many upheavals demanding extreme caution while parting with money. Every paisa that could be saved was for a future that could turn either way.
But now when I see woke citizens crying themselves hoarse over millennial way of living that consumes too much, wastes too much without much thought for consequences, I want to get back into the time machine and change my expression to "oh wow, Maa" from "oh god, not again". All the first world recycling evangelists who preach us new ways to clean living with minimal wastage and make us feel guilty for every sip we take, every bag we take, every trash we toss away - Have you met a middle class Indian housewife?
My Didaa carried the same shopping bag to the market till she breathed her last without a hint of righteous pride. We didn’t have to segregate our trash because curdled milk became paneer, leftover sabzi became paranthas, used tea-leaves became compost, old saris were made into curtains, old socks were turned into cleaning sponge. Like a cat, even our clothes had nine lives, transmuting from special occasion to home wear to night wear before breathing its last as dusting cloth.
Why, even our souls are recycled and have been hopping from one body to another since the Big Bang.
So the next time when Modi Ji or some minister sings paeans to an ancient India that gave the world mind-boggling technology and advances in science and then forgot to use it for their own betterment, they should spare a thought for the Indian homemaker.
The world can learn a thing or two about recycling and minimal waste from the average grihani who scrapes, saves, reuses every damn thing and switches off lights and fans everywhere she goes.
The Earth Hour makes us reflect by plunging the world into darkness. Maybe we ought to have an hour, bathed in light and celebration, dedicated to the Indian middle class homemaker.