Loss of identity

The water cooler stands in the corner of my room, probably mourning over its own loss of identity. I don’t remember the last time we used it. Summers in Bangalore are not as bad as they are in Madras (now Chennai), where we had bought it over fifteen years ago. The day it arrived had been a day of celebration and even greater relief. It had taken most of the space of our modest bedroom of the company quarters we stayed in.”As long as it helps us survive this summer”, dad had added with a smile after we managed to squeeze it in the corner of my parent’s bedroom. The grey symphony cooler was a sight, with its box like shape and its tall iron stand. Its swinging fan and its ability to convert still water to cool breeze had amazed me. I remember telling my friends with a sense of pride that an air conditioner had arrived at home; little did they know that it was only a cooler, the poor man’s answer to an AC. I had slept with my parents through the summer under the fresh breeze of the cooler, the tank of which I had helped fill with water during late evenings. As much as it embarrassed me, sleeping with parents that is, it was a choice that I was ready to make as opposed to sleeping in the sweltering heat in my bed.
The cooler had been one of the few things that we brought back to Bangalore once dad’s tenure in Madras had ended. Now it stands, dull and old, only as a testament to a summer spent in a land whose scorching heat had managed to drive us back. But yet my parents have cringed at the idea of giving it away, without giving any particular reason. So now it has, I am sure, half heartedly slipped into substitute roles of being a table, a storage stand and sometimes even a temporary seat. Much like many of our own lives, that has forced us into roles that we may not be best suited for, but yet have to partake, for in some ways our loss of identity is someone else’s gain.

Faking it for real

I love decorating my house with fresh flowers, buying them from the local florist and then meticulously putting them in glass vases filled with water, adding a pinch of salt to make sure they last longer and then placing them at various places across the house; roses and carnations for the living room and lilies for the bedrooms. My love for natural flowers is only beatable by my mother’s love for the fake ones. Her interest had begun when I’d taken her to a store that sold these fake flowers a few years ago, a decision that I would regret for the rest of my life. She had stood there amazed admiring the beauty of the fake roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, lotuses and hibiscus. She had told me that she had seen many fake flowers but none had been as close to the real ones. She touched them over and over again, sometimes even picking a few to smell them to confirm that they are only a replica. She spent over three hours in the store, picking up a bunch of the roses for the center table in the living room, as we left. Before I knew it, in a few weeks time, the house was filled with flowers bought from the same store. They were all over the house, to my horror, making their presence felt even in the bathroom. I would wince with disgust and request her to put them away. But by then it was too late, she had even inspired a few friends to do the same. Soon more flowers started to arrive as gifts or discount buys. I pointed out to my mother how the house looked like the Lal Bagh fake flower show exhibition had shifted its venue, but all that criticism was only falling to deaf ears.
It’s been a few years since all this happened, and I wish I could tell you that things have changed, that my mother finally grew tired of them and gave them away or a part of the house caught fire and they were all destroyed. But the truth is none of that happened, god did not heed to my prayers. However, I have changed; well not as drastically as liking the fake flowers, but my tolerance towards them has improved. Now I neither detest nor admire them. However, even now, once in a while I walk up to the local florist to buy a bunch of lilies that I place at the most visible part of the living room, admiring it from a distance, knowing that the others can only be substandard substitutes aspiring to match up to its beauty and elegance.

Swatch it

It was a surprise birthday gift, the watch. And it was a Swatch, and a beautiful one, to add to it. With its large round black dial and metallic body, it was exactly what I would have reached out for on the shelf myself. The black square shaped crystals along the strap and the dial, added just the right amount of glamour, without making it over the top. And it did fit perfectly as well, comfortably falling along my wrist.
I have never been into brands, and have lived wearing stuff I pick off the streets, it allows me the bargain, something I enjoyed more than the buy. But then I married a man who was close to crazy about branded watches and owned a collection of it himself. I still remember the look on his face when I told him that I don’t wear watches. I saw him almost reconsider his decision to marry me.
My last watch was my mother’s and I wore it to school. It had stopped working before I left school, but by then I had given up wearing watches. As much as was thrilled to have it, I complained that I was bad at taking care of such expensive gifts. My husband had then disappointedly suggested exchanging it for something else. But when I considered how my otherwise unromantic husband had taken the pain of not only buying the gift in advance but had also waited till the clock stuck twelve on my birthday and given it with a bunch of flowers; I felt that there could be nothing more precious than this.
Since then I wear the watch regularly when I go out. It tells me more than the time of the day, reminding me of all the times that I shared with my husband, the good and the bad, the fights, the resolutions, the love and the laughs. In short, it reminds me that I am very married.
Since then, I received two more watches, both on birthdays. Well, I am not complaining.