Heirlooms of a different kind

Whether we mean to or not, we acquire items of practical use from our childhood homes and they, more than any of the valuables we ‘inherit’, become an essential part of our everyday lives.

When a trendy (at the time) vegetable peeler found its way into Mom’s kitchen decades ago, none of us knew what to do with it. Then a ‘foreign-returned’ friend demonstrated how it worked and we were hooked! No longer was peeling a mound of potatoes or carrots a never ending task to be grumbled through.

Once one got the hang of how to position the blades, skins flew off the veggies in no time! Naturally, the peeler eventually found its way into my home and I also acquired a spare — for the catastrophic eventuality when someone in a fit of carelessness threw it away along with the peels! A masterpiece of utility was a long handled dust pan Mom brought home from Australia after her first trip there. It stayed hidden in a cupboard and only emerged when the maid failed to appear, but it spelt liberation for the women of our household.

No more backbreaking bending to collect the dirt from each room as we swept. In fact, no need to depend on a maid at all! A flick of the broom and everything went neatly into the pan and we could march off to do our bit in the next room and the next.

This, too, ‘came down’ to me and, like everything else that brought convenience and comfort to household chores, it had to have a back-up, an extra, a replacement in case it split in two. As far as I was concerned, every heir(loom) needed a spare!

Case of overkill

Another practical household aid I ‘inherited’ was a high wooden stool. At first it seemed to be a case of overkill in a house packed with furniture, what with a high chair for the baby, an easy chair for the elderly, a rocking chair, a swing, and sundry tables that could be used as stools at a crunch.

For a long time, that high stool came out only at Christmas and on birthdays when decorations had to be put up or taken down. Now that we think twice before we decorate and three times before we risk jumping on and off the stool, we should be dispensing with it and sending it off into storage.

But suddenly, it has revealed its true colours ... When seated on it, our weight is off our legs and we are at the ideal height to chop and stir and fry in the kitchen. No wonder Mom kept that stool polished and painted and always on hand!

There are sure to be ‘heirlooms’ such as these in every home. Maybe it is that old-style towel stand that screams ‘British Raj’ and ‘cantonment bungalow’ when you look at it, or maybe it is the coconut palm hand fan which came down from your grandparents’ time. It isn’t anywhere near the classy Spanish fan you associate with the flamenco, but it somehow manages to move the air in just the way you want on a hot summer day.

As I look at these ‘heirlooms’ I now cannot live without, I wonder how many will go into the next generation homes of our children.

Who needs those ‘old world’ things that are precious only to me when vegetables are bought peeled, sliced and diced, vacuum cleaners come equipped for every possible cleaning task, readymade meals are just a phone call away, and backup inverters and generators cater for the times without electricity?

The writer is a journalist based in India.