We are constantly looking for things in our house and the
things we look for are the things we have taken great care to keep it in a safe
and secure place. What we find is not what we are looking for. When we need it,
we do not know where to find it. This is the story of every household and these
are things around which the household conversations happen, emotions live,
moments happen. These things that we buy, decorate, arrange, hide, store,
re-invent – they are the life of a household. If everything is boxed, tagged, labelled
and kept in a place of order, it would be like a supermarket.
Who want their house to look like an Ikea store? Who wants
to throw away everything that you don’t need or don’t use? The wedding clothes –
they are hardly ever worn again, hope no one must wear it again. Saying that,
would you not be happy to look at it now and then and keep it back. Do anyone
wants to say thank you for sparking joy and put the wedding gown in the trash
can, no……!! My mother’s hand-woven scarf and woollen cap. It is not something I
wear anymore, maybe I will never wear them, do I say thank you for sparking joy
and throw it in the thrash can? Photographs – our memories, gifts from friends’
miles away – physically and emotionally, books the life of a house, toys of
your children, these are the things that makes a home. Why do we choose a home
and not live in a hotel, a serviced apartment or an AirBnB forever? Because we all
need that place which will have the smell and feel of our surrounding –
parents, friends, photographs, partners. A home is like our partners, never
perfect always work in progress. Given a chance, Marie Kondo will walk into our
home and have us thank each other for sparking joy and have us walk out into
our own trash cans or boxes.
Here is how I want my house. Organise the house in such a
way that I have what I need only and that will contain my childhood and college
memories, things from my hostel, the tomboy cap that I will never wear again
but have it in my closet, the totally mismatched junk jewelleries that I have
collected all my life. I will have all my books, whether I read them or not, I
will continue to have my cassette players, records and CDs even though I will
never ever play them. I will continue to have empty bottles of wine in the bar
counter because they are attached to special moments like send-offs and
break-ups and celebrations. But…………………. I will keep them all so that they look
like I cherish having them. I will not dump them randomly in some corners of
the house.
What we really need in our life is a little time to start
organising our house, cleaning the mess we end up making and arranging things. We
need to make some time to start shelving, organising and do a round of
monitoring to what is pure trash and what is not. Throw away the torn shoes and
broken, rusted and cobwebbed utilities. Box things and store them. Do your
dishes regularly and put the newspapers away into the bin regularly. I watched
the videos that went on air in Netflix – most of the houses needed the people
to stop being lazy and do the basic cleaning. Set up the cutlery drawers, buy
storage jars to keep kitchen supply, do your laundry and put back your clothes
into the wardrobe, arrange your wardrobe once in every 1-3-6-12 months.
Who needs Marie Kondo to put your life together?
You don’t know how to fold your clothes? You don’t know how
to arrange your kitchen? Well – You need to make friends people with cleaner
houses. Try not being judgemental and go to where you go for your Guru, Yoga
and Ayurveda. Marie Kondo did not invent anything, she just targeted the people
who had no clue what was happening with their life. We have been folding our
shirts and keeping our house crystal clean even without her, from a long time
back, since generations together. We have been thanking our life and home every
day- just not in Netflix. We have always known about not throwing away boxes, re-cycling
stuffs, re-using boxes and putting things in place.
Parents these days have an easy solution to their created
mess; they call it children. Their houses are dirty because of children, their
laundries are not done because of children, the wardrobe cos children, the
kitchen ...cos the children; please don’t give the excuse of children. We have
been there and our mothers have done a much better job than us. Send the
children to play school and get your mess together. Start somewhere because today
children can sit in a place if you hand over the iPad but we did not have a
choice. Our mothers had to mind us constantly from picking mud and insect and
putting them in the mouth.
Don’t pay a bomb to Marie Kondo, spend some time in DIY home
beautification as a family. There is no ending to throwing away things, it was
not an environmental way to disposing things either on Netflix. Try and re-use
things as they really spark joy. Marie Kondo does not.
