Recycling, before it was fashionable

It was a beautiful skirt and blouse set. The material was a soft cotton, and the colour was a lovely shade of pink--not a garish mithai pink nor a bright rani pink but a soft pastel pink. The skirt had a silver edging, and so did the collar of the blouse. It was bought for my elder sister, and she looked very nice in it.

I couldn’t wait to wear it because I knew that, in a few years, it would be mine. Eight years separated us. When she outgrew it after a couple of years, I was still too small. My mother, knowing how eager I was to wear it, took up the hem and tightened the waist. Lo and behold, it became a “new” dress for me.

As the youngest of six children, I always wore my elder siblings’ cast-offs. It never occurred to me to feel deprived; there was something thrilling about wearing clothes previously loved by my sisters.

We all went to the same school, so even my school uniforms were hand-me-downs. When I outgrew them, Mother stitched the thick, durable skirts into shopping bags. 

My mother had a wristwatch--an HMT Sujata--which she gave to one of my sisters when she turned 16. It came to me when I turned 16. I still have it, though it is beyond repair now. 

Using things that once belonged to my siblings filled me with pride. Carrying Wren and Martin’s English grammar book, with the names of all six of us written inside, made me glow. The old red hardbound book was in such good condition that it put my classmates’ new paperback editions with dog-eared covers to shame.

Wearing my mother’s old saris gives me a thrill which no new sari can. I feel as though she is hugging me, and when I look in the mirror, I can see her.

The practice of reusing and recycling was honed to a fine art by my mother-in-law. Old T-shirts and vests turned into dusters and mops, old bedsheets and soft cotton saris were turned into quilts, and old buckets and mugs became pots for plants.

Once she used her recycling talent quite comically. She used to buy a birthday card for my father-in-law every year on his birthday. Once she found the perfect card with romantic wordings. Both of them thought the words were very apt for them, and Father-in-law really appreciated the card. So she put it away carefully, and the next year, she gave him the same card! This went on every year.

She finally put a stop to it when, in the fourth year, he remarked, “The words seem to be familiar. I think I have read them before!”

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)