Exploring the Art of Reuse

Exploring the Art of Re-Use

Our household had a lot of sundry items that were kept neatly by our elders, sometimes out of our reach for safety reasons. One such item was fishing hooks, which were recovered from fishes bought from the local fish market. The seller would caution my father that the anglers had caught these fish using metallic fishing hooks. So, there might be few such metallic hooks stuck inside the fish’s mouth.

At home, my Ma (mother) or my Kakima (aunt) would first extract those metallic pieces carefully from each of those fishes before cooking and they would keep those items at a height, carefully packed inside a hard container, beyond our reach. We, the kids at home, knew also that those were dangerous items, not to be touched. Our elder cousin-brother, Milan da, (da meaning Dada - the elder brother), would sometimes pass on those stocks to the local aspiring anglers who would be too happy to reuse those hooks for fishing in the local village ponds.

I am presenting here an interesting incident. One day, my Ma could not start at ten o’clock in the morning for her school. She usually would reach the School by ten-thirty in the morning. She called me. "Babla (my nickname), can you do something? I can not open the wall-almirah. The bunch of keys for the household is inside". She usually would carry that bunch in her side bag while going to school.

On further inquiry, I found out that the duplicate key, which she always would tie in a knot along with her sharee (garment) anchhal (corner edge), was untraceable. She was getting late.

I was then studying in class seventh standard. Our school would start at eleven am.

I surveyed the wall-almirah at the top bunk. Through the glass window cover, I could view the bunch of keys inside, some ten centimeters away from the almirah doors. Someone had locked the almirah by a Godrej Lock using the duplicate key. With a little effort, I could open the locked doors from the top by a maximum of ten millimeters. But that was not a sufficient clearance to put something inside and pull out the bunch of keys.

Then suddenly an idea struck me. I had a magnet. One of my classmates gifted that to me. I tried that. I put the magnet on the glass surface outside. However, the bunch of keys was too far and also quite heavy. The magnet could not pull it.

What to do? I had another flash in my mind.

We just had a lesson on a pendulum in our school. I reached out at the height using a ladder and collected a metallic (iron) fishing hook from its forbidden storage place. All at home were curious. Nobody stopped me. Then I tied a thread around the fishing hook and hung it from a narrow rod. Now, I could insert this fishing hook and a part of the narrow rod inside the almirah from the top opening, having around ten-millimeter clearance.

Now the hook was hanging from the rod very close to the bunch of keys inside. I used the magnet to swing the hook back and forth like a pendulum. This maneuvering helped. With some effort, the hook could finally latch on to the ring of the key-bunch firmly. Then, I could carefully pull the whole key bunch out of the almirah from the top narrow opening.

In short, I could reuse the fishing hook and the magnet for some useful purposes.

My Ma left for her school with that bunch of keys. We subsequently could trace the missing duplicate key as well.

There are quite a few such re-use stories.

Here is one more re-use story.

All my five sisters had a subject in their school: Home Science. Among many things, including cooking and/ or preparing special delicacies, they also learned how to perform needlework, how to stitch a dress material, how to weave a woolen garment, etc. The trouble was: I being the only brother of these five sisters, all would ensure that I also learn at least a part of these lessons. I had a few areas of interest. One area was, of course, simple stitching. So, my sisters would occasionally quiz me: what is Running Stitch? What is Basting Stitch? What is Backstitch? etc., etc. If I fail, they would teach me the trick again and again. Those were the times of the 1960s.

Now, in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, the same learning was so useful. Here are a few examples.

In the 1990s, and, and again in the 2000s, I was in Mumbai for some longer durations. While packing my luggage, I would ensure that I have the box containing needles of a few useful sizes, a few reels of threads having two or three colors, few buttons for replacements as required.

I was staying at Santacruz Office Guesthouse, Mumbai. I had a very important presentation at 10 am at the Bandra East office at BKC. I pulled out my preferred dress set in the morning. A few days back, I got the same set washed and ironed by an external washerman. To my horror, a few of the buttons were missing or broken. I had no extra set ready to fall back upon. What to do? I pulled out my stitching box. Everything I needed was there! I could stitch and/ or replace a few buttons quickly. I could save the day.

These days, gradually, I am adopting to repair and re-use mentality. The pandemic also partially compelled me to pursue that.

Here is a recent reuse story.

Of late, mosquitos bugged me for a few consecutive nights. Initially, I thought, I could not enter or exit the mosquito net carefully during the night. Later, I discovered, there were a four feet long stitch on the nylon net that opened up at multiple places. My initial reaction was, to dump it and go for a brand new mosquito net. Then, there was resistance from within. I pulled out the stitching box available at home. For the next few days, I stitched one foot carefully every day. Within a week, the whole forward stitch was meticulously done. I thought I should perform another guarding stitch from the reverse direction. That was also over in a few days. Now it’s a rugged mosquito net. I can vouch for it. I am thankful to all my sisters. They taught me a survival technique that is now a source of immense joy.

In the software industry, we had been reusing almost everything. We reuse a program code, reuse a component, reuse a pattern, reuse a framework. We reuse a system specification, reuse a design. We reuse a concept; reuse a process; reuse a platform; reuse a standard, reuse a template, reuse a checklist. We reuse domain knowledge, use cases, test scenarios, test cases, test automation suite, and whatnot. In this manner, we are saving time and effort in delivering newer systems and solutions. We are replicating our knowledge and experience to churn out complex solutions within record time. We also reduce wastage in human power and resources in the process.

Here is one point to ponder over:

If we can reuse so much in our life, why do we use and throw? Should we put a check on consumerism and wastage? Should we adopt a philosophy of repair, replicate and reuse?

Does that help in saving the glacier? Does that help in saving the planet? I believe, it does.

————x———-