It was a huge garage—at least to me. The ceilings were high. Despite the old pale blue Premier Padmini and a bicycle, there was enough space for aluminium trunks—the quintessential Rajai boxes that most families owned back then—some painted black, and all of them with a serial number. My mother had cut out the dates from a calendar and pasted them on the boxes, so we knew how many we had. It made life easier for a family that had to move every few years. Years later, it was this small labeling tip that helped us as we moved from our first apartment.
As a child, I was obsessed with seashells. As was my mother and her mother. Hoarding runs in the family. And it was for these seashells that I was rummaging through the garage. I’d caught wind of a treasure of shells, and I was determined to find it. One of these boxes had to have them.
At last, I found them. Out came one large clam—the size of my palm. And another, this one with layers. And they grew bigger, two of them so large that I could carry only one with both my hands. What on earth were these huge clams doing inside a dusty, cob-web-covered dark corner? And what’s that? Coral! My heart sank when I saw that some of them had cement stuck in them. Maybe it’ll come off with some cleaning, I reassured myself.
Looking back, I can only imagine what it must have been like to move a fully furnished household across the country with 2 small children in tow. The two of us struggled when we moved with our spartan belongings within the city. But at the time, I was livid. How could these precious items be so neglected?
Back inside the house with my haul, I set about cleaning them as best as I could. The dust eventually came off to reveal the creamy skeleton. The cement stayed. Maybe time will wear down the cement. After all, they do eventually peel off from our walls.
As my father saw me lugging around my new playthings, he quietly slipped in a little fact. You know, in the deep sea, there are seashells the size of bathtubs. I saw a faint twinkle in his eyes. Seashell hoarding wasn’t just a part of the ladies in the house.
Those clam shells and corals still sit in my parents’ house, displayed on a shelf. And with them, a dream that one day, I’d see those bathtub-sized shells.
Musings of an eccentric mind 