Lessons from Spring Cleaning

Image borrowed from https://vegetarianirvana.wordpress.com/page/2/

After years I took up the duster again, the demands of my job,  the reliance on hired help, ensured that the cleaning chore was no more required to be shared among family members. But hired help have the habit of giving you the slip once in awhile, and this time around it was a ‘marriage in the family’ for the maid, gone as she was for a week. She went on a Friday, so come Sunday it was my time to wield the broom and the duster.

Years of regimentation at work played on my mind and I had to ensure that the project I took up was done professionally. I had to score higher than the maid, to prove my prowess and  also  keep the management (you guessed it right !) happy. That’s how I started with a flourish and ended up learning lot of life lessons from a simple job. Before I started the cleaning, I ensured that I shifted the entire furniture askew to access the remotest corner, this also ensured that I opened up old storages and rummaged through them. initially the intent was to set them right but encountered so much clutter that it became a herculean job, one which made me all the more wiser.

Avoid Clutter my guru had told me :I came across so much clutter that I could not think straight, trinkets, gifts that did not remind us any more of the giver, outdated items which were in good condition but could not be used, shrunken pants, and expanded elastics, you name it, it was all there, kept safe for a rainy day. The problem was that come a rainy day, one does not even remember, where one had kept the expanded elastic which could have been used to tie a window shut, a window banging in the wind with its latch broken. Had I stood firm to throw away all the old stuff, it would have meant convincing two women in the household, but I let it pass. Peace has it price to pay, and here the price was quite affordable.

Then it set me thinking, why so much possessiveness, should we not let go and be free instead of being tied down to so many lame logic's and be pulled back by such heavy baggage. What about me ? I was buying peace at the cost of so much clutter in life,  was it worth it ?

I discovered buttons : Tens and hundreds of them, under the sheets, in the drawers, in little boxes meant for buttons, unique buttons, suited to a particular garment, when one popped, you had to save it for future use, for one could not throw away the garment for the need of a button could we ?  I learnt that with new found affluence one could throw away a garment with a missing button after all, because, for none of the button that I found, I could locate the garment. But the buttons stayed loyal to its owner, and remained where they were kept, for years to come.

What a wonderful contraption a button, which partners with the button hole to protect your modesty. But the day it breaks from its moorings it has no value. If it pops off in public, you could pay a dear price, on top of that you loose the button too to the crowd, never to show its face again to you, after having failed in its duty of keeping the garment together.

Similarly in life we carry so many buttons. Buttons which saved your modesty once upon a time, but don’t mean anything at all in the present. Buttons of behavior, buttons of beliefs which have been proven wrong, buttons which held together relationships, ones which don’t exist any more. Buttons of faith, Buttons of false hope.

Discard those buttons, when things change, some buttons lose it, it’s easier to discard them and move on, rather than have them cluttering up your life.  

 

I found my fiddle : The old chest heaved, the lid immobilised by years of dust and disuse. The hinges creaked as I lifted the heavy lid. Sitting there in the garage it looked like the proverbial Pandora box. The plume of dust that blew into the air, made me sneeze, as the first thing I found underneath was the Wren & Martin’s Grammar book. I picked it up gently, the dog eared pages reminded me of my childhood, I opened the hardcover, the first page announced “ with love to Venkat” signed ‘Thomas Wickfield’ Nov’1932, it announced, the ink still radiant on the page gone brown with age. Thomas was the Englishman, who commanded the tea estate to which to my Grandfather, was a caretaker.  I remembered the difficult times at school, struggling with English Grammar, trying to differentiate active voice from passive voice, identifying nouns from a verbs, a pursuit which would in those days prove to be a difficult puzzle difficult to solve. English Grammar still remains a nightmare, compounded by its American usage.

I dig deeper into the chest, books and more books, an old box with the ceremonial dress worn by a relative in world war -I, a coffee bean roaster, a Kummuti (Tamil charcoal stove) and underneath all that stood a satin fiddle box. My grandfather’s Violin, snugly sitting there, waiting for someone to lift it, cradle it in one’s arms, and make it sing in deep pathos.

I lifted it up like one would pick up an infant, and gently tightened the strings. The knobs creaked in protest, yet complied with my nudge, I picked up the bow lying alongside, and gently played a sombre note, it purred like a cat woken from slumber. From one note to another I moved up the scale and speed, and was soon playing the ‘English Note” to a fast tempo. Lost to the word, unaware that wife and kid had come hearing the wafting notes, and were silently drinking from the gentle stream of music I was playing in my now dirty pyjamas. ‘Papa, you play the ‘Violin’ so well, said my son, that when my memories came tormenting back, my childhood dream of becoming a musician, the prizes and appreciations that I received as a child for my exploits with these strings, all came back, flooding me with tears.

Somewhere along the road I had lost my connect with the instrument, and went in pursuit of larger things in life, things which seemed so small now, compared to my larger than life dreams of making it big in music. Today with other priorities in life not so relevant, the discovery of this Violin meant a new hope to me, a straw to clutch upon, to fulfill those unfulfilled desires, pursuits which will make complete me, but may not be getting me great rewards in life..

There are many other fiddles lying lost and buried in everyone’s attic. Do revisit them,  and find out what it actually means to you now, strengths on which you dream of building those wonderful castles, are they still with you or lost somewhere in some meaningless pursuit. How about picking up the strings once more.

My old briefcase : was lying underneath the fiddle, pushed to the background, its numerical lock tightly in place,  since the number lock was configured to my birth date I still happened to remember the password, I twisted the tumblers to complete the combination and the lock dutifully clicked open. I opened the briefcase and found testimonials  from my early career. certificates, letter of appreciations, (there were no e-mails in those days), diaries, journals and so many things that was ‘me’.

Symbols and significance lost to time. Confidence and resolves dissolved with a few drops of turbulence called time. Revising these reignited the old ‘Me’ and brought in new meaning to my pursuits, recharged my batteries. I have a comparison now in front of me,  the erstwhile ‘me’ and the new ‘me’. Some of the shades seem better, the others seem to fade in comparison, time for another course correction ?  Quite likely.

In two hours time, I had cleaned up the place, rediscovered myself, set my place in order, discarded a pile of baggage,  dusted away a lot of dust from essential pages of life, and come away successful in one more project given to me by my ‘Superiors’. My faith in the management now strengthened, I looked up to them for the reward. “Besh Besh” ( 'great' an expression of delight in Tamil)  she smiled ‘what a great job you have done”, you now truly deserve a hot cup of coffee, she crooned. How could she have known that I have rewarded myself multiple times over by a simple act of housekeeping.

Let not the dust settle, when the hoofs beat the trail, dust is but natural, to avoid the dust means avoiding the pursuit, that does not warrant that one should not polish the saddle.

“Where is the brasso” ? I yelled eyeing the mantle piece gone dull.