In the gathering

I was reading a report this morning on two people who collect stuff. The ‘stuff’ in their case is old films and music, of which they have an enviable collection. Reading the story made me marvel at their patience and passion, to gather up all this and be so committed about it. I envy people who collect things. A girl I know stockpiles bus tickets – I did that once – and uses them to make bookmarks, she told me a few minutes ago. The same girl, who has a delightfully quirky sense of style and a way of speaking that never fails to charm me, also collects various other bits and pieces, from CDs to earrings to “all sorts of things that I really cannot throw away even though I know I have to,” she says ruefully.

A friend of mine collects Indian contemporary art. He has such a huge array of canvases and sculptures that they are rotated through his home and his workplace, making their appearance goodness knows where else. And with each sale, each auction and each exhibition, he acquires more, all of which needs to be looked after, gloated over and, best of all, shown off. Sometimes I wonder where he keeps all this and whether he can keep track of what he has, but he always assures me that he knows just what is where and when and why it was bought. Occasionally he will get rid of one piece…and probably replace it with many more!

Another friend also collects art, but of a slightly different kind. He acquires prints and occasionally picks up an original painting. Someone else I know accumulates – and I mean that literally – cars, buying everything from the most modern and hi-tech of models to old iron steeds that should, ideally, be stored in vacuum cases in a high security vault because they are so rare and so beautiful. A venerable old gentleman I have heard a great deal about has a huge collection of playing cards, while a person I once interviewed has a stash of fabrics, old and new, from which I had to almost literally be pried away, since they were so beautiful.

I never really collected anything with any kind of passion. My bus tickets were put into a large box that just filled up gradually, none of its contents catalogued or even sorted. Every time I went somewhere by bus, which I did quite a bit in the days before I ignominiously discovered just how bilious I could get in that huge vehicle, I saved the ticket, finally gathering so many that they had to be either thrown away or done something with, if you know what I mean, convoluted grammar notwithstanding. Then, one day, perhaps just before I took off to college, I went through the box and decided to throw most of what was in it away; all that I saved were the really interesting expeditions – the bus ride in Athens to see the Parthenon, the first time I rode to work from out home in Mumbai, the last day of high school after all the weepy farewells were said…

But, when I really think about it, what I do collect is people. So do all of us, but mine, to me, in my little world, are extra special. They all come in and out of my life with a certain drama, a significant fanfare, be it at work or in my personal realm. Each has memories that are good and bright and sunny and fun; every one of them has memories that are dark and bad and of the kind that should be forgotten, sooner the better. But they all mean something unique, a little potpourri of experience and incident that should, realistically speaking, never be thought of as unwanted. Because they have all made me what I am…my own collection of ‘stuff’.