Why Aren’t the Clothes Speaking?
Today is Saturday and here I am, in a super center; the
biggest store, where everything for our daily use is available. The store opens
for twenty four hours. I am here to shop. But I am here, late in the evening
because I was busy in the morning and the afternoon, cleaning my house. I
cleaned the rooms with the vacuum cleaner, washed the cars, mowed the lawn,
mopped the kitchen and organized the living room. I always pile up these chores
for weekend. My weekdays are so busy that I don’t even have time to do my
laundry. I have to go to work even on Sunday. So I always pile up chores to do
on Saturday. Saturday is my own day, it is not sold like the other days.
Just a few minutes ago I entered the store. Without any
confusion I went straight to the men’s section because the sign ‘on sale’ drew
my attention. I saw the price tags hanging on the clothes. They were amazing. I
calculated the costs; the cost is my five- minute wage, enough to buy four
shirts. I took four shirts and put them in the shopping cart.
I have a big list of groceries to buy but something made
me sit on the bench. I am sitting on the bench and swimming in the sea of
memories. The situation I am in is too
hard to describe. I jumped from the
memories of my past to present. I stared at the shirts that lay in my shopping
cart.
These lifeless shirts took me to my past, my childhood.
It took me to the local market where people from different villages came to buy
necessary things. The local market would open only two days in a week. It was
five miles from my village and I had to walk to get there. I still remember I
used to go to the market with my mother. Before going to the market my mother
had to sell a certain amount of wheat or paddy to get money for shopping. As a
child, when I was in my village, I had to wait more than five or six months to
buy a piece of cloth.
It was hard to convince my father to buy a piece of
cloth. Due to his low income we lived hand to mouth, it was very hard to meet
our daily needs. Therefore, I needed help of my mother; she would convince my
father to buy me a piece of cloth. My mom had to show a real need of the cloth
to convince my father. I had to wait for special occasions like Fagua or Chhat
to get the clothes.
My mom used to go
with me to the market after getting my father’s permission to buy the clothes.
I don’t have words to describe the happiness I would get after getting the
clothes- a pair of shirt and pajama. I did buy some sweets with a very small
amount of money which my mother did give me from her secret saving. After
eating the sweets and drinking a lot of water from a manually operated
water-pipe near by the market, I did get my shopping over. I didn’t have any
more interest in the market. I was in a
hurry to go home and tell my friends that I got a new pair of clothes.
While returning from the market I had to follow my mom.
On the way back home I felt like I had just conquered a war, simply because I
bought a pair of clothes. Whatever I saw on my way was beautiful to me; even
the muddy river which was very difficult to cross was also. It was not the
short that made me happy, nor the shirt, nor was the situation or my
environment but it was the time. The time was beautiful.
I am in the store, just bought four shirts but the
happiness I felt as a child is missing. I spent very little to buy the shirts,
yet the happiness is missing.
Going to the cashier to pay for the clothes is not
necessary in this huge super store. I may choose self check out option. Paying
is so easy that I only need to insert the credit card or the cash. But such
easy transaction is not giving that pleasure which I used to have in those
days, in that local market.
I checked out only those shirts. But I did not buy my
grocery, and I did not know why. I
proceeded to the parking lot.
My daily life is like a machine. It starts early in the
morning and stops close to the midnight. In my so called convenient life I
never get the opportunity to feel that joy which I did as a child. Some time I
think I left my joys in the village.
Now I am driving my car. The shirts which are lying on
the back seat of my car drew my attention. I again went to my past.
I am thinking, I had to take high precaution for the new
cloth during the first month, when I was in the village. I was scared of ripping
the cloth. Particularly elbow, pocket and collar because those part were very
sensitive of rough use and a small negligence could harm them. But how long
could the poor cloth give me its company?
Just after two or three months the shirts would start ripping because I
used it so much. I wore the same clothes every day for a month and more. There
was no spare for the shirt or the short. After two or three months one could
see holes in the elbow, collar, and the pocket in my shirt. I had to show those
holes to my mother on time because she
had to manage the pieces of old clothes to patch them up and for that she
always did keep pieces of torn clothes particularly from my dad’s old trouser.
She had one small iron box to keep the needle and the roll of threads.
My mother did patch the holes up with the piece of my
dad’s trouser. After getting the holes patched up in the shirt, it felt new.
That patched up shirt gave me happiness. That gave me unlimited happiness. It
is amazing to realize how the patched up shirt was able to give me a limitless
joy. But in my present life wearing a cloth until it gets torn out is
impossible. Last week I threw more than 10 pants and shirts not because they
were torn but they were too old and out dated.
I was tired of wearing them. While throwing them I never felt any pity
on them. Because, I was never attached to them emotionally like with the ones
in my childhood.
In my present life I treat my clothes like plates and
glasses in a restaurant. People only care for them while eating. After eating and departing from the
restaurant people never remember the plates and the glasses that they had used
in the restaurant. In their whole life time they never remember. But those clothes that I wore in my childhood
and even until completing middle school, I remember them. They are stored in my
memory permanently. I realize that I don’t remember them because of the
memories of tragic poverty but because of the infinite love that we shared as a
family. With every patch that my mother sewed, she also sewed her hard-work,
she sewed her dedication, and she sewed her love. In my childhood, all my
clothes had my mother’s smell. They had my mother’s touch. She was embedded in
my clothes like the threads.
That patching brings my mother back to my memories. I can
almost touch her through the memories of those patches. Those patches were not
the pieces of clothes rather love of my mother. The patches not only carried
different colors but also her love. They connected me with her heart.
Finally, after years I realize the significance of those
patches. I realize why I did not like to throw those patched clothes even when
they were not in a position to wear again. But now I have no feelings while
throwing my clothes. My clothes and I don’t have the same bond as we shared few
decades ago. They lack, they miss, the love of my mother. Now I realize that
our poverty was better than my wealth right now. The poverty gave us an
opportunity to show the love for each other. Now I am financially strong but
that has taken me far away from my mom.
I am now materialistic. I keep the things as long as they
satisfy me. When I am satisfied I throw them away. No emotions are attached. I
am looking at my newly bought clothes but they are not talking. These four
shirts lying on my bed are silent. But the clothes from my childhood could
speak. Their words-treasured in my heart.
BISHWA R ADHIKARI
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