• Prema Jayakumar

Major repairs are going on in the house and as usual, it involves dragging out things from the shelves and the spaces under them, from under the beds and the remote corners of the top shelf. I took one of those ‘I’ll be good’ resolutions that I would not just push them all back from where they come, I would get rid of the useless things, give away things that others could use, and rearrange the things that I wanted to use. I know, I know. That way lies madness.

But, it’s not just me, is it? If there can be a whole book shelf of tomes advising us how to lead simpler lives, how to declutter our homes and minds, and these books stay of the best-seller lists for months on end, it is surely expected that a sensible person could do a good job of clearing up? There was Marie Kondo with her ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing’ and there was ‘Goodbye Things’ by Fumio Sasaki. And people have had to do these things when they downsized their establishment.

I should not find it difficult, I thought. First of all, I realised that I am possessive about some things. Mostly useless books and bits of paper. Strand Books of Bombay used to send me those thin catalogues so that I could order books. I still had piles of them with books marked for buying later. The logic for keeping them after Strand had closed had been that they would be available in some other book shop and I could buy them there. And there were the articles that I had cut out and kept, interesting at the time, but now the pages were crumbling into dust. There were the really old magazines and books that I had meant to hand over to some library or the other who would give them a secure home. Historically important, I thought. But the libraries did not seem to be of the same opinion. The book binders say they cannot bind them. Even the people who buy old paper do not want them. Surely the English text book I studied in the second standard in the early sixties is not essential to anyone’s wellbeing. And yet, it seemed to be sacrilege to tear up the brown-paper covered, carefully-handled book. We have been taught that book-burners are the worst people, haven’t we?

The letters sent by friends when we were in our teens, walking each other through troubles we thought would never end, giving courage when needed, sharing good news and bad, and generally keeping abreast. The letters and papers take you down memory lane and tearing them up seems a very violent act. It’s as though you are tearing up your youth. But then I realise that not just those bits of paper, but I’m also mortal and this is a job that would have to be done by someone else if I do not do it myself. The old photographs, that are faded and will mean nothing to anyone else to go into the bin.

Then, there are the clothes. They are easier because I have been following a principle of not letting my wardrobe get crowded. But there are the clothes belonging to the children, which you had kept from sentiment. The baby dress, the school uniform, the kurta that had made your son look so grown up when he wore one for the first time for his cousin’s marriage. Off they go into the carton into which all the wearable clothes go, to be donated to an organisation that collects clothes for distribution. And the refrigerator with all the half-used condiments that testify to a short-lived fascination with Italian cooking.

Perhaps that old ritual clearing of the house that we used to do at the end of the Malayalam month of Mithunam makes sense now. All the old and broken things used to be gathered, all corners and niches swept out and the things were thrown out with the Jyeshta, the goddess of mess. And then you welcomed the goddess of prosperity into your house. Oh well, I’ll have to do without the comfort of ritual, and hoping that a decluttered shelf will lead to a decluttered room, a decluttered house, in sequence, and thence to a decluttered mind and life, I bend once more to the task.