Come Ugadi month every year, my memories go back to the year 1970. That year, an aunt of mine presented a Ugadi gift to me — a tin box of medium size to carry books to school. This box soon became a part of my life, right from my primary and middle school days in rainy Chikkamagaluru to my high school years in hot and humid Mangalore.
I used the box to keep those things that I considered expensive, interesting and precious, and very rarely carried it to school. In the beginning, I preserved screws, nuts and bolts, one leg of a cutting plier, the head of a hammer and likewise. Used Topaz and Panama blades and nibs of hero pens were my prime possessions. When my cycle was given for overhaul, I borrowed valves and a cycle bell and added them to my kitty. A piece of cycle tube was also kept which later took the form of ‘caterbillu’ (catapult).
Matchbox covers and counterfoils of cinema theatres also were procured. While shifting the household things to Mangalore, I glued to the box and sat in the lorry. So Amma scolded, ‘You and your boxu… Karma, Karma’. In the new location, I added counterfoils of cinema theatres. Old things were replaced by new ones like Indian and foreign stamps. With its curios hidden, the box became the ‘talk of the compound’ and its owner's name spread in the neighbourhood.
As I progressed to higher classes, I replaced old curios with new things: diode valves, knobs, aerials, wires, plugs, needles along with handles of record players, broken pieces of gramophone plates, parts of Favre Leuba timepiece, springs and a pair of magnets. All these occupied a section of the box. The other portion was for counterfoils of Central, Jyothi, New Chitra and Lido, Galaxy and Vijayalakshmi. In the middle sat in a royal style, a dead starfish which I borrowed from a friend from Bolar who studied in Cascia. Sometimes, I exchanged these with friends in Padua and St Aloysius. Gilette and Reynold pens flown from Muscat also found a shelter.
A new 40-page ‘Wisdom’ notebook along with black-and-white pictures of Hollywood western cowboys which I tore from ‘Screen’ and some newspapers, Bharta Bharati books, and a copy of Amara Chira Katha occupied the box. Covers of popular bathing soaps like Lifeboy, Mysore Sandals and Hamam gave freshness to the box.
As years rolled by, my interest in curios began to decline. The box also lost its charm, thanks to poor maintenance. One day its handle came out from the main body. On another day, a bed that was rolled and kept on a stool accidentally fell on the box, flattening it along with the curios inside.