Spring Cleaning

I don't know of any other city where you can do so little and yet the day seems a blur.

Anyways, having come back, it was time to take stock of the stuff we had not looked at in so many years.

I am now convinced that nowhere else in the world things are recycled as much as in India.

The 'watchman' in the building was sounded out on our need for a 'radhiwala' at 9 o' clock and promptly at 11 there was this guy at the door with his gunny bag and scales ready to take old newaspapers. I timidly asked him if he took things other than newspapers and he nodded his head vigourously.

For the next two hours 'operation clean up' lasted. What came out of the storage lofts and shelves amazed me. I never realized that I had a squirrel like habit of putting away things...things which should have been thrown long back.

The stuff included buckets with no handles, dust covered card board boxes which had variously held the toaster, mixer, the iron, the telephone etc at some point of time, a vacuum cleaner minus many of its parts, steel vessels which I had never used and would never use, old lamp shades, cooker lids minus the actual cooker (don't ask me what had happened to the cooker!), and many other things which I am too ashamed to recount here. Most of the stuff were quite indistinguishable as they were so heavily hung with cobwebs and dust. The spiders and roaches were obviously having a good time all these years.

The entire operation was one hell of a dusty experience to say the least.

But still more amazing is that for all that junk we got a princely sum of 200 rupees. I felt extremely guilty taking the amount but the radhiwalla himself seemed pleased to part with the money for all that booty..... So you see what i mean by recycling!

What was removed was just the tip of the iceberg. There's more from where it all came. But we left it for another day. The guy happily offered to come back at a later date. All we have to do is call him on his 'mobile'!

This city is truly bewildering!