HAPPY NEW YEAR

 As we are moving house, I have been discarding a lot of old stuff. My family members are a little less practical and more emotional and sentimental.

My husband's PG days handwritten notes, half-eaten by moths, damp, discoloured, were lying in a carton for a quarter of a century. I was segregating the trash into two segments, one which will go to the kabadiwaala and the other to the dustbin, realising that the moth-eaten notes would not be accepted even by the kabadiwaala dumped them into a carton, a makeshift dustbin.

While I was doing this in the living room during the early morning hours, the man walked in, rubbing his eyes and peeped into the dustbin to check what I had disposed of.

He picked up the notes and gave me a look at how dare you! How could you! I said it's 21 years since you passed your PG; for what do you need these notes now? Moreover, your subject has evolved much, and you have learned much more than what Is in them.

They aren't even read anymore; why do you still want to hang on to them.

I said enough of it. I am exhausted handling your emotional baggage, and you attach your emotions to everything and anything. Either they will go to the new house, or I will. He exclaimed, " As if I had a choice!"

I said, Yes, you don't, so leave the notes in the dustbin and don't come to this site. I am throwing out a lot of your stuff today...

Then, I went to the daughter's desk and thoroughly cleaned her table to my heart's content. I threw out the centuries-old chocolate wrappers, the one-eyed, amputated, quadriplegic, bald, semi-naked Barbie dolls, pen caps, one-inch-length crayons, and sharp pencil bits on both sides. I kept intact her childhood drawings, paintings, and school diaries.

I did not dare touch the son's shelf in his absence, fearing I would lose a finger or two. He has accumulated various chemical potions in small bottles from different labs. I asked him on WhatsApp that he would only be allowed into the new house with some of his trash material collections.

When he came home yesterday for Christmas break, I made him sit and throw out his old test tubes with dangerous chemicals. Once, a neighbour who looked at the son's shelf asked me, "Does he make bombs? Keep an eye on him, Mrs Reddy. I  hope he is not associating with the wrong guys; it was difficult explaining to her and many other curious visitors to our house his interest in weapons and everything that goes into making them.

But I enjoyed destroying their emotional baggage.

It was a burden for me to manage their sentiments and old accumulated stuff. Emotions and feelings are good, but they shouldn't become a liability to others.

Learn from the past, grow wise and shed away the unwanted. Don't accumulate but analyse, understand, assimilate and move on …. Let's not stay stuck in the past… let's leave the past behind to make space for new experiences.

Happy New Year, people... leave the past behind!

.