COBWEBS IN THE CLOSET

It is really amusing how we just can’t get rid of certain things in life no matter how dirty, old or useless they maybe. An old t-shirt, a favourite pair of jeans, an old stamp, your first watch, the first diary, the first thing you bought out of your first salary…

I happened to come across a carry bag in one corner of my drawer today morning while I was looking for something to keep my project papers in. I came across the bag – with a name on it that was at one point very special to me. I looked at the bag that had once carried a beautiful set of pearls for me in a beautiful brown coloured case with a note in it, and with lots of love. I looked again at the name on the bag that was at one point very special to me; and I looked at it with no emotion, no feeling or bonding or attachment.

That is what love does to you sometimes. It exhausts you, depletes you completely of any kind or form of love once it leaves you. And that is what has happened to me.

I still have the pearl set with me. It is far too beautiful for me to give it away to anyone. And it is the only gift that I have ever got that was really a surprise for me. I mean, I knew a gift was coming my way, but I didn’t know it would be what it was. I never knew or thought he was capable of picking up something like that. But he did, and it meant a lot to me. At least back then it did. And I cannot give it away.

But the pearl set remains in its brown case – untouched, unworn and out of sight. I never had the occasion to wear it, though I loved it very much. It is strange, considering the fact that I have had it for more than a year now. One year, so many festivals, so many family functions and get-togethers, and still not one chance good enough for me to want to wear it.

But the pearl set remains. I cannot somehow bear to look at it; for fear of releasing the emotions I have so painfully locked away in some trunk and thrown at the bottom of the sea in my mind – irretrievable. I am just not able to look at the set anymore; at least not without feeling a pang in my chest that refuses to go away for a long long time.

But I have somehow still kept the bag the pearl set came in – with the name on it that was at one point very special to me. I haven’t gotten rid of the bag, though I know I can. Of course I haven’t intentionally kept the bag with me either. But it just has remained with me for a while now. And I don’t really know if I have grown attached to it or what, but throwing it away doesn’t feel right anymore somehow.

And that is how the human mind is – an idea, a feeling, an emotion once planted in the mind only knows to grow. Happiness becomes mirth, boredom becomes frustration, laziness becomes inertia, and sadness becomes melancholy. Although what it is with the bag that makes it impossible for me to throw it out I still don’t know. The name, the person who the bag came from, what he did to me and where I have landed because of him also do not seem to be reasons enough for me to throw it out. I am conscious I have not intentionally kept the bag, as I have the pearl set on the other hand, and the note that came with it, and the coffee bill with a remark in his hand at the back of it, and a picture of ours that my friend had clicked for me.

And yet the bag remains, in one corner of my drawer, with a name on it that was at one point very special to me.