The other day, on a rare Saturday off work, I decided to finally clean up the house or atleast some parts of it. And so the safai abhiyaan began…and stopped at THE cupboard. The single Godrej steel almaari that any self respecting Indian housewife must have, even if she can find no use for it (other than storing raddi and rags that even the stylish bai refuses to take).
So here I was trying to clean the thing up and found myself being surprised by the heavy bunch of keys that came along with it. What exactly do so many of these keys open…I wondered! And then surprise surprise, I find a hidden safe within the safe! And as if the thing was playing games…there was a cache of wedding gifts from 2 years ago that I had forgotten ever receiving. All this finding and surprising interested my husband long enough to get UNSTUCK from TV to come comment on the growing collection of knick knacks that had been so safely put away that they had been SAFE from us too…………
In the tradition of having SAFE places in all homes of India, my Mom usually had some of the safest places. Some so safe that once something got deposited in them….you could forget them for the rest of your life! Still looking for that extra set of car keys that mom safely put away! God help us if we loose the original set. Usually these places were the cracked glass in the crockey cupboard or a small clutch at the back of a shelf. The process was usually to first ask her to hand over something you had initially handed over for safekeeping. Then would ensue a small tag game of ‘which repository could it be’ followed by a whirlwind search of first all the repositories and if lucky, one of them would yield the item asked for….phew.
On the topic of safe places for valuables or such like, there always seems to be a dearth of safe places on ones person when out in the world of chain snatching, pick-pocketing and personal absentmindedness.
Recently heard that one such place was a commonly found pocket in the petticoat. Wondering if it’s only for the valuables….does mobile phone count as valuable? If yes then how does one retrieve it from its safe place without unraveling the saree? Is it another art that one must learn along with the orginal art of tying a saree to begin with?
I personally find the end of my dupatta a fairly good place to knot up excess Prasad at the local temple or one of those lovely gajras (not sure this is the terminology) that are handed out there, alas the gajra has to go in the knots as my severely shorn hair refuse to support them. Perhaps I must start carrying a hairclip too to clip it to the side of my head, like they do it here with very young children. No matter, the point remains that it makes my duppatta, or atleast the end of it, a mighty weapon to be fling around to clear a path out of the temple! Think Janamashtmi in ISKON and Sai Baba Mandir on Thursdays…or is it Tuesdays?
On the other hand I am still working out means to safely store my stuff in the jeans pockets without adding that unwanted extra padding….who wants pointy bulges when the original bulge being supported by the said pair of jeans is already to bursting point? Thankfully some enterprising soul at Fab India had the brilliant idea of stitching a pocket onto the kurta…these make for great mobile and keys storing places.
Leaving aside all these man-woman made places, the God given safety deposit box still remains one of the most popular! For women it is you know…ahem ahem, between the unmentionables of substantial size. Ofcourse the stored items, usually money, comes out all perspired on and odourised. Always felt like rushing over to buy a sanitizer after being handed over the change, wondering if it was worth the five rupees received in change to spend the next ten minutes wiping hands on every rough surface I can find.
Just for gender equality purposes, what is the safest place for guys to store their valuables?