Lifetime in a leather bag

In today's troubled times, with suspicion running high everywhere and neither age nor gender being a guarantee of one's innocence, it's common to be checked at malls and multiplexes.

What we had thought unbearable a decade ago, a violation of our rights and something that would make us squirm with unease, is now a matter of course.

No longer is it considered embarrassing to have a metal detector sweep over us, no longer do we mind being patted down before we walk in for a movie or for a casual lunch at a restaurant. Why, even the small but popular eateries of our cities have their own security systems - they or their ilk having already been bitten once. Who knows which place will be the next target?

So we take it in our stride. A group of middle-aged ladies goes out for a movie and a shopping binge in the middle of the afternoon, when they know they won't have to contend with crowds. They saunter into the multiplex to be routinely searched and scanned, and there isn't even a break in their conversation.

One enters the curtained off space, another close behind, the third ahead - and the thread of talk doesn't tear for even a second.

Without hesitation, they open their bags, they let the lady security person rummage inside. When it's too much of a mess to distinguish what's what and the metal detector is beeping, out comes everything on the table! That's when you recall someone telling you long ago that the contents of a lady's handbag are not for public viewing.

One by one, the items are lined up. Feeling her belongings require justification, she explains to her friends why she has so much metal. So many potential weapons. A slim penknife, possibly from the days before the Swiss army knife became bulky with myriad knives, openers, saws and even toothpicks.

"That's been with me for 35 plus years, since my college days," she comments. "Who knew when I'd need to cut an apple or a mango and share it with friends and family? And this folding scissors that takes up only an inch of space, I got it when I had to do the last-minute trimming for my son's art project when he was in Class 2. As for the tweezers from shaping my eyebrows in my teens to plucking the disfiguring hair on my chin today it's a must!

"I can't tell you how many times I've had to use these tubes of antiseptic for cuts and abrasions on our way home from school. Yes, it was twenty years ago, and yes, I've kept replacing them to keep them within their date of expiry.

"These neatly foiled packets, possibly mistaken for RDX, are for long journeys when a homemade cereal bar is the energy booster, the metal keepsakes are for good luck, this pouch has postage stamps and revenue stamps and also glue and tape, band-aid and safety pins, just in case..."

Ah, there's a teaspoon and a fork, thankfully of plastic, and two mobile phones, "One to talk to my son it has a different ringtone so that I'm alerted at once and the other is for the rest of the world!"

A profusion of notepads spill out next, and she piles them up carefully. They contain phone numbers and addresses, reminders to herself and ideas to work on.

Her friends understand. They too have had their 'just in case' moments. Like her, they know it's all necessary. It's been in this leather bag or some replica of it for longer than the security guard has been alive and it's not going anywhere in a hurry.

Bored and expressionless, the guard puts everything back unaware that the events of a lifetime, the story of one person's interests and ideas, strengths and insecurities, have just passed through her disinterested hands.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.