Recycle Swamy

It’s a common sight at home to see me repairing shoes and slippers with adhesive on the weekends. Using one-side printed paper in the printer is not a novelty anymore. Ensuring toothpaste is squeezed to the last bit and that near-empty sauce bottles are washed and poured into simmering gravies do not constitute miserliness but indicate a frugal living. DIYs like basic cobbling, plumbing, tailoring, painting and all the professions linked to home upkeep is modus vivendi— a Latin phrase meaning way of life or way of living. Our growing up days were the time for hand-me-downs.

Wisdom taught me to buy a cycle pump when we bought our kids’ first bicycles. This was to ensure that every other day I wouldn't have to spend money on “air” and that the children get some additional exercise pumping air into the tyres. After a few years of rigorous use, the pump hose which injects the air into the tyre tore off and the pump was rendered useless. Not willing to let go, I removed the hose, cut its edge and fixed it to make it work again. That’s when my kid said: "If I had to name you, I would have called you Recycle Swamy.”

I mend the small tears on clothes, a skill that my mother taught me. The kids are in awe and ensure that every month they dump their torn clothes for me to mend. As a thumb rule, pants become bermudas and then finally shorts before they are discarded, extending their life twice over by repurposing.

When the wires in the extension plug box started to tear, an insulation tape came to the rescue— the box is still in use at home. The bathroom window had glass panes jutting out and cello tape came to the rescue to put it back in place. When our new neighbour was painting his house, I had no qualms asking him for a few paintbrush dips of the leftover varnish to help re-varnish our main door.

There was this expensive toy that children loved, which stopped working after some time despite fresh batteries. So, I decided to take it apart and realised that a wire was detached from the circuit board. I got hold of a soldering iron and fixed it. I'm not sure how many kids know about soldering iron these days.

The other evening, I saw the one who wanted to rename me carrying the toolkit down to our apartment play area. Curiously, I followed to see a few younger kids waiting willingly in a line, clutching their cycles. My teenager was fixing all the minor problems in their cycles one by one. Well, children learn from what we do, right? Guess we belong to an era where we mend things and not throw them away— including relationships.