Store Wars

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.)