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.