Of collection, hobbies and hoarding

It is generally believed that collecting too many material possessions is not good. We can carry nothing to the other world, the songs and messages of famous spiritual leaders always remind us.

But what about collecting as a hobby? There are collectors of all kinds in the world, and those who spend fortunes to build up piles of old gramophone records or antique show-pieces are mostly praised for their efforts, despite often being prone to acting on impulse, behaving in an impractical manner or even turning obsessive in some cases.

But in this fast-paced age of internet, has collecting lost its charm? Earlier, a favourite song being played on the radio would make me elated and I would rush to find a pen and paper so that I can write down the lyrics, which I had a habit of collecting. Now I can hear nearly every song in YouTube and Google the lyrics in a jiffy, but the fun quotient is considerably less. Photo albums are now passé, but photographs stored in pen drives are rarely revisited.

My mom has a trunk-ful of old and apparently useless stuff. A leaf from a tree in Mussourie where she worked as a young schoolteacher, a letter written by her grandfather discussing a proposal of marriage of her parents which she came across somewhere, a pic of an Iraqi boy during the war, cut from The Statesman and kept because he "looked a bit like" her eldest grandson.

Now nearing 90, she often says, "I don't know why did I keep all these, nobody will have any use of these after I go." I don't try to reassure her, though I myself have been guilty of collecting bus tickets and match- boxes as a kid, and posters of sportsmen as a teenager (mom did not like me putting up photos of "males" like Maradona and Gavaskar, so I balanced it with PT Usha). However, 20 years of migrant existence has changed me. Now I throw away things mercilessly, lest they become a burden during the next move to a new house. The only exception are my books, half of them unread, earning glances of displeasure from porters during shifting, and in constant strife with pests and bookworms.

Maybe, someday, I will have the heart to stop hoarding them and give some of them away to a library. After all, the poet said, "kya leke aya bande kya leke jayega".

(P.S.: The dead-body of my first mobile phone is still with me. Call it Psycho-3, or whatever. Photograph enclosed)