Where is my stuff ?

This morning we were talking about the stuff we had left behind. As immigrants my uncle and several other members of my family have all left home with just a suitcase seeking our fortunes in lands far away from home. In doing so, we have often been separated from our stuff.

Stuff that we had painstakingly collected in our youth - stuff that we remembered with fondness and nostalgia -stuff that we could no longer lay our hands on. This stuff was the topic of our conversation. We were sitting in my "staged for sale" family room - I was getting ready to move once again. We were sipping Brooke Bond tea, a few strands of sunshine peeking out from behind a thick curtain of clouds, as a damp and gentle breeze wafted through the open windows. And suddenly I missed the stuff I used to have.

I missed my signature collection of cotton saris, gathered over a period of time - beautiful handloom saris from every part of India, the kind that made people stop and stare and ask me where I'd bought them . I had left them neatly stacked (ok my mom did the stacking) , occupying a full shelf in Mom's Godrej cupboard. When I returned 13 years later, I found just the one sari - my father used it to line the ironing table after it had turned soft after years of washing - it had done duty as my mothers favorite sari to wear in the house. There was no sign of the others.

It seems that shortly after my departure from the US, my mother and sisters-in-law had decided that I wasn't going to want these any more, and there really was no point in letting them rot away in the cupboard. The greatest honor they could think of for these saris was for them to keep them in circulation by wearing them. They would have consulted me had they thought for a second that I might have a different opinion on how they should be used.

And I missed my books that had probably made their way to a raddi pile or were donated to some library.

But this reminded my uncle about his stamp collection which he last saw in 1960. When he returned to the family home in Bombay several years later , he asked his young nephew Sudhin what he had done with the stamps. By then, Sudhin had taken over possession of the drawer in which my uncle, Nitin, had left the stamps. Sudhin told him he was just starting a collection himself and that he loved stamps. Too chicken to confront his older siblings over the loss of the stamps, Nitin simply wrote off his stamp collection. But it did not stop him from wondering about it this morning.


In any case it was the "randho" that my dad had given him that he had been really attached to. A "randho" is the Hindi name for a manual tool used to shape a block of wood - a predecessor to a router perhaps. Nitin often hung out at our house watching my dad work on his various carpentry projects. So my dad bought him a miniature randho that was very similar to the one he used. He loved that little randho, imagining all the things he could fashion with it. Suddenly, almost 50 years after he had last seen it, he had this strong need to find out what happened to it.

It was only 7 o'clock in the morning, we knew Mom would be awake, but we weren't sure she would pick up the phone. So we decided to call up Sudhin to see if he remembered the stamp collection any better than he had some 40 years ago...

So we called up Sudhin.. we talked to his son Ajay - who I think must have silently questioned our sanity - and quickly handed us off to Sudhin. "Hmmm.......you know I must call up Apurva and find out what he did to my coin collection.. I had all these rare and precious coins.. I haven't seen them since I left for Bahrain..... Stamps ? Kaka I've lost my whole coin collection, it was HUGE..........I bet Apurva knows something about it....." Clearly we were not going to find my uncle's stuff by talking to Sudhin.

So we hung up on Sudhin and called my mom, who hasn't forgotten anything - "Mom, do you remember the small randho papa bought Nitin - he left it behind when he came to America and he hasn't seen it since." Oh that's what happens to stuff.. I remember all the stuff I left behind in Kishore Bhuvan that they threw away as soon as I left the house. I had the most beautiful collection of music and songs - I got married, I left the house - when I came back from Haldwani 6 weeks later - everything was gone, and someone had taken over my drawer. I tell you the minute you leave, people throw away your stuff and take over your space. I am told someone decided that there wasn't enough space in the house for being sentimental. "

Then my dad got on the phone. "Oh yes, I remember the randho I gave you. What did you do with it Nitin ?"

This reminded me of my brother Uttam, bemoaning the loss of his "first day covers". First day covers were envelopes bearing stamps that were "postmarked" on the date they were first issued. First day covers were a big deal. My brother would make the trip by train from Bandra to Churchgate. From there he would walk to the GPO (Grand ? Post Office) by Victoria Terminus (now Chattrapati Shivaji Terminal). Here he would stand on line to receive the strictly 1 per person envelope that bore a special seal, and had on it a the newly released stamp. An instant collectors item was created when the post office datestamped this envelope. I know, because I once accompanied my brother on such a trip. I remember mostly just being fatigued by the hot sun and bored with standing on line.

But the first day covers - those are gone - vanished into thin air. Most likely I asked my mom to move them out to make room for some of my stuff. Probably best if I don't say anything - perhaps my brother has consoled himself with some other collection. Perhaps the coins... oh I think he bequeathed his coin collection to Sudhin.. Oh dear...

My sister-in-law Joyce wanted to know what all the to-do was over stuff. We told her she should be greatful she had no siblings waiting to take over her space and lose her stuff. And she reminded me that while she had no siblings...... she did have two daughters whom I had trained to throw stuff away. And they seemed to have learnt rather well.

For earlier this year, the one cleaned out the pantry throwing away the historic collection of spices that had been in the family since 1982, and the other had cleaned out Joyce's closet and from it perfectly good clothes that were a just a few sizes too large.. I kicked myself as I remembered lecturing the young ones - "You see all this stuff in my house. You have a choice, you can help me get rid of it now -while I can help you, or you can discard it when I am gone."

And with that I moved up the family tradition of losing stuff to a whole new level.. now we don't even wait for someone to leave - we now throw stuff out at periodic "weedings". Stuff that hasn't been used in a while, stuff that doesn't fit or look right, sometimes stuff that we paid lots of money for, sometimes stuff we really should keep - all this gets thrown away in the name of SHEDding or rationalization - Lets face it, there isn't much reverse migration happening from the US of A.

Chances are we will never find the stamps, the coins, the randho, the books, the clothes or the spices. On the other hand, thanks to the internet we did find this delightful piece on Stuff by George Carlin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac .