A black tin trunk is more than just a tin trunk amateurishly coated in black paint. The romanticism of just knowing and looking
at it, lying conspicuously under the bed or in a corner neatly stacked away,
has the power to warm a cold heart, even on days when the city’s gloomy monsoon envelops more than just the weather and the rain no longer
pitter-patters at the window. It’s a full fledged storm. The one in the mind
stronger than the one lashing outside.
In my not-so-impressive studio apartment in the middle of a
bustling city plagued with an abundance of noise and a discernible lack of
privacy, times like these seem to be flying by like the smooth sand of an hour
glass, never missing a beat. Times like these give me the almost deliciously
tangible feeling of being cocooned in a small stone cottage, on some long
forgotten hill, with the kettle put on boil for hours on end. The tea cup never
really gets to know what it is to be empty. It is filled to the brim before it
be properly cleared of the last dregs of the previous cup. However, that doesn't bother me. The moment the searing hot liquid touches the tip of my
tongue, I know of a happiness that eludes me on otherwise happy sunny days. And
on those days I don’t even write. I sit down to do so, nonetheless. And then I
go on imagining the utter happiness of writing on days like these.
I decide to clear the dust of my trunk. The reassuring clink
with which it unravels under my loving fingers, giving into the moment of
opening the joyous treasures within to its mistress’s eyes and touch. It
belongs to me. A possession solely mine whose entire being came into existence
because I decided so. Power tempered with heartache.
The black paint has started to peel off in certain places.
Places where it had been hurt while being unceremoniously shifted from one
state to another, one house to another. I take off bits of flaky paint and
decide to cover up the exposed bits myself. My name however, in thick white
paint on the lower left corner, remains as it was the day it had been painted
on. The inherent part of its being, I smile.
Materialism is somewhat more comforting than dealing with an
abstract of tangled emotions and evolving humans. You give in to it without
inhibitions and without having to tiptoe around it. Sometimes, I have caught
myself wondering if the sentiments I have attached to a single piece of painted bent tin is acceptable. I assume those were my weak moments. I have seen my
father carefully preserving his trunk from his college days. I am not alone. On
second thoughts, even if I was I would have still loved you in the same
hopeless way, tin trunk.
You think I’m behaving like a mushy fool? I’ll tell you what
it is. It is a Pensieve. Not just of your memories, though. Of your thoughts,
of links to a life you once had, of days you once spent making a card for a
friend and forgetting to post it, of scented candles you once burnt on a night
you wished had never ended.
And of course, the books. A half read War and Peace jostles
for space with The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Books that have faithfully
been trundled from my childhood home to hostel, from a place I once shared with my sister to a place I live alone now.Books that I bought when I was 15 and which I
religiously carry everywhere. Books I ordered when I first discovered the joys
of FlipKart. Books I bought from second hand stores because I convinced myself
the book was more important than the smell of fresh unopened pages. I still
have doubts over my judgment though.There is little wear and tear to account
for their journey, however. Tin trunk took the brunt of my restlessness.
Tin trunk is a little house. I take out a bottle of now-dry
nail paint. A piece of unused white ribbon. A pink stapler which has a plastic
heart stuck on it. The Winnie the Pooh pencil box from primary school. The silver
Chinese Hero pen, which always merits a special mention because it is the first
pen I owned. Don’t confuse it for a house of collectibles. It is just a house
for a single person. The only non living entity that brings a smell of home and
love and laughter in the slightly musty scent of remembrance.
The rain stops, the tea cup is cleaned and the dust is off.
From tin trunk as well as memory. Happiness snuck away in a nondescript tin
trunk with flaky black paint.
Tin trunk, I even love the way you sound in my head.
