I am drowning in the sea of consumption. Things pour into my house from every direction, every day, at all hours, 24/7/365. Monstrous cereal boxes glued two apiece; enormous jugs of liquid soap of every imaginable kind; tissue boxes lined up like bricks at a construction site; a closet full of suitcases stuffed with used clothing stacked up from floor to ceiling; shoes for any conceivable activity including some that remain happily encased in their original packaging, unused; mail order boxes from as far away as 广东省; bottles of spices and condiments that could supply a small ethnic store; disinfectant wipes; cleaning sprays; industrial size glass cleaner jugs a gallon apiece; a collection of food items and bottled water that will bring instant smile to the face of any survivalist. I had imposed a ban on bottled water in the house but the ban was whittled away by the repeated assault of a pernicious modern attribute called convenience.
The plenitude should feel welcome after the early experiences of the rationing of every necessity, but it's not. Instead, it's causing unease, doubt, and a sense of resignation. How did it come to this?
Life used to be simple with fewer choices. In college, a few shirts and a couple of pants. Wash, rinse, dry, wear, repeat. Suddenly the washer and dryer look like egregious excesses and the closet a colossal waste of space. A bar of soap, a towel, and a pond took care of bathing needs. No shampoo, conditioner, or bath gel—what the heck is bath gel anyway? Need a shave? Reach for the same bar of soap; good riddance to the can of compressed shaving foam. With no shower stall or bathtub to clean, out goes the mini army of cleaning sprays, biodegradable or not. Has anyone really succeeded in ridding the soap scum ever? The pond was on an auto recycle mode, gaining renewed life every monsoon, which filled it to the brim with 20 feet of crystal clear water showcasing the plentiful piscine life below.And food? There were no wrenching discussions around what to eat, how much, and worse, where to go out. You ate what was served, which was seasonal, and mostly a repeat of what you ate yesterday. Second servings were limited to rice and the curry of the day, sans sides. Craving for a dessert? Wait till the next birthday, puja, or utsavam (temple festival)—you are sure to get your one serving of sharkara payasam (a rice pudding), stones and other inedible extraneous material included. Despite the limited options, a pellet of jaggery stolen from the sooty kitchen cupboard and munched hiding behind the tamarind tree feels so much more satisfying than any cup of ice cream scooped up from the freezer and eaten recumbent in front of the TV.
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| Jaggery - Trick or Treat? |
The unrequited craving for sweets made it the perfect prop to pull pranks. Ask my brothers about the Bhagavad Seva (a puja to propitiate the Goddess) incident.
The Bhagavad Seva was an annual affair in our home, something we looked forward to because of the aforementioned sharkara payasam and assorted treats prepared as offerings during this sacred ceremony. The seva was held in the kitchen, which was cleaned spotless by the time the presiding priest showed up in the evening. Once he entered the kitchen, entry to the premises was banned for everyone else. My sister and brothers sat in the adjoining hallway reciting the evening prayers. Eldest among the siblings, I was more likely using the time to smoke a beedi (a miniature cigar) in my room. However, when the priest rang the bell announcing the conclusion of the puja, I rushed down to round up the leftover nalikera pool (slices of coconut endosperm) and jaggery pellets.
On this occasion, I was upfront early and waiting as the priest did the aarti and rang the ceremonial bell heralding the puja’s conclusion. As soon as he stepped out, I ran in, my brothers following suit.
“De oru sharkara kashnam. Athu edutho,” I told Pramod, the youngest, who had a pronounced weakness for anything sweet. (There is a piece of jaggery. Grab it.)
Without missing a beat, he bent down, scooped up the piece, and brought it up toward his mouth. “Ayyeeee,” he yelled disgustedly and threw it down on the floor.
“Ithu sharkara alla,” he said. “Ithu chanakaa!” (This is not jaggery. This is cow dung!). Holy s@#*!
Honestly, the allure of simple times appears only in rear view. At the time, adding a few conveniences looked appealing, an entitlement even. Upgrading from rationed food in favor of unlimited seconds looked like improved nutrition. Moving from spartan floor seating to the upscale tabletop seemed like gaining a leg up in society. What wasn't obvious was how consumption creeps upon you. A convenience here, a luxury there and before you know it, you are wallowing in artificial needs that suddenly appear to be dire necessities.
I used to ride happily to college on my bike. That changed when I won an ICAR scholarship for the Master's program. The first thought was, how to rid of the bike and upgrade to a motorcycle? The scholarship was generous, but not enough to afford a Bullet, the certified cool vehicle with a Harley-Davidsonesque persona. I settled on borrowing my dad’s motor scooter. Trouble was, I barely knew how to drive the thing. On my first trip back after dropping him off at the railway station, I crashed the scooter head-on against a parked lorry. As the lorry driver looked down bemused at this brazen display of unforced error, I reversed and sped away accompanied by the loud clanking of the front panel dangling to the side. Luckily, my scholarship money came in handy for a surreptitious repair. My father saw the new rivets and I was forced to spill out the story of the crash.
I had hoped that riding a scooter into the campus would put me at a distinct advantage with the beauties over the pedestrian students, if you will pardon the pun. But it turned out to be a sticky proposition. I was riding up a tree-lined drive, too absorbed in trying to get the attention of a junior walking by to care about what was in front of me. A large drum of tar had toppled, dispelling its noxious content oozing out onto the road. I rode right in until the wheels got bogged down in the viscous fluid. It took hours of mightily embarrassing scraping and cleaning in public view to get the tar off and get the hell out of there. That girl? Never heard from her again.
But the consumption boom didn’t last. Soon I was back in a life of blissful minimalism. There was little alternative as a poor Indian graduate student in America, subsisting solely on assistantship funds, a good chunk of which had to be saved to pay off the “agricultural loan” I had taken to buy the airline ticket. Without money, the adjustment wasn’t hard, despite the gargantuan superstores all around overflowing with stuff. When I did venture out, it was with the singular purpose of buying the cheapest item at the biggest discount. This led to troubling situations with everything from the deodorant to the used car.
Things didn’t change much after I finished studies and landed a job. That’s when I started facing some determined opposition to the frugal lifestyle. My wife shared neither my qualms about consumption nor my compulsion for saving. Things came to a head when my sister-in-law came to help after our son was born. The house didn’t have a cable connection and what passed for TV was an old pre-owned model with a rabbit ear antenna. It had to be adjusted in just the right way to get the channel—PBS (like Doordarshan). “Where am I?” she asked. It took some pleading and persuasion to make her stay for a fortnight.
Needless to say, I buckled, loosened the purse strings, and started replacing the second-hand possessions. My wife’s old Chevy Chevette, if you knew such a thing existed, was traded up for a Honda Accord. Scandinavian hardwood furniture with clean lines replaced particle board bed frame, nightstand, and drawer chest. New china filled the kitchen shelves. Cable followed, and I bought a PC blowing two grand, leading my wife to question whether my frugality extended only to things she cared about. Owning a home was next and the spree to stock it up. The lifestyle was changing, convenience was in, conservation out. It felt good.
As consumption mounted, so did something else: a growing collection of unused, unopened, or unworkable things strewn about the house as relics of thoughtless choices and impulsive buying. Over the years some of these items were dispatched by hoisting them on someone else as a gift. Just kidding. The fact is, it is hard to throw away these things because you paid for them. So you keep them around, hoping that one day, one day you will find a use for them. Either that or they were bought from India on a nostalgic whim or with a grand desire to improve kitchen efficiency. Exhibit A—a collection of ethnic cookware. The pride of place in this collection goes to the idli maker. Purported to be made of stainless steel, these multi-lid ergonomically challenged contraptions curiously start rusting at the first contact with water. But that’s the least of their troubles. All screws and knobs fall apart in short order and they quickly morph into efficient scalding machines. Opening the vessel each time after the idli is cooked turns into an act of sheer daredevilry.
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| Collector's Item |
But if these things weren’t it, then what knocked me over the edge surely was getting hooked on online shopping. Oh, the convenience! And the savings. You know the kind of money you save when you buy? They are huuuuuge! Counting up all that our household has saved through one-click ordering, I am all set for retirement.
But while proclaiming to be ambivalent about consumption, one thing I have unambiguously enjoyed. Those Amazon Prime boxes. They make good fire starters. With a steady supply of delivery cartons pouring in, I rarely have to hunt for kindle anymore to keep the flames roaring in my fireplace. Let’s toast to that!
