As with most people, we too had a
room full of stuff in our ancestral home that everyone had forgotten about. Till
the day I ventured in determined to empty the room. Yes, it’s called a store
room and it is obviously meant for storing.
I was ready to get rid of almost
everything, sparing a few huge brass pots and wooden chests which I thought had
antique value and could be placed as artefacts. But the number of reasons I was
given by everyone around for retaining things were mind blowing! That
‘favourite pair of jeans’, that ‘extremely comfortable shirt that I (hope) will
eventually fit into’, ‘the lamp my best friend gifted me on my nth birthday’,
my grandmother’s ladles, my mother’s (broken) chair, my baby’s clothes (who is
now 21 years old!)… Sentiments, memories, attachment, greed… Ah! Well! Call it
what you like. The list certainly went on. And on.
An elderly, paan chewing woman draped in a nine yard sari came in to help us
clean up. She appeared to be someone who could have certainly done with having
all the things we had stored. I offered her the saris, unused towels and bed
sheets I had unearthed. Her response
left me stunned. A simple, ‘No, bai’.
Eh? No? I was confused.
I opened up the sheets and towels and
showed her that they were new and unused. Like a salesperson I tried convincing
her that they would come in handy at home. No. She wasn’t interested. This
continued with everything that I offered her. Whaat??! She was psyching me! How can someone
who has almost nothing say no to anything?
All that she ultimately requested for
was an old switchboard explaining that she needed one for her home. Finally, a
dab of balm for my badly bruised ego.
The woman had the power of no. It’s no
big deal having it when you have everything going for you. But to have it when
you have very little? That I believe is the power of fulfilment. I don’t know
if it has rubbed off on me, but she’s certainly got me infected with this
crazy impulse to de-clutter our home, much to everyone’s chagrin!
Come to think of it, how much is to
be stored and for how long? If you haven’t felt the need for it since the time
you put it away, does the need for it even exist anymore? Does the reason for
storing it remain valid? Once when interacting with a sadhu from the Himalayas, I was told,
‘If you haven’t used something for six months then you have lost the right to
own it. Give it away.’ As simple as that!
(This article first appeared in the international youth magazine Chinmaya Udghosh, under the series Mindful Whispers.)
