Maxima and Minima
As I prepared to celebrate Diwali, I made a list of things
“to do” - shopping for gifts that needed to be bought for the family (I headed
the list of people-to-be-shopped-for but that’s a well kept secret!), Diwali snacks
to prepare (ambitious!) or order (more likely!), deep cleaning the house, and,
perhaps, a visit to the jewelers (window shopping only, I swear!).
At the end
of the four days of the festival, there were leftover sweets and snacks that
the family refused to touch, more calories accumulated than we ought to have,
more clothes than we’d bargained for, and gifts that we didn’t really need.
As
I, like many others around me, grappled with this problem of plenty, I was
reminded of a fairytale time three decades ago when, for my family, minimalism
was a way of life and being able to procure life’s essentials was optimism at
best and an impossibility at worst.
It is strange to be comparing a time full of uncertainty and
deprivation to a fairytale. To understand this contradiction better, I’d like
you to embark with me on a time travel back to the mid 80’s. You will need to
accompany me to Taraboulis or Tripoli, the capital of Libya, a city resting on
the shores of the beautiful Mediterranean Sea.
We will start our tour from the pretty promenade by the
seashore to walk down the busy Omar Mukhtar Street and then take a left to
reach a four storied building built in early 20th century Italian
style. There’s no elevator, so you’ll have to walk up three floors to the tiny
apartment where Uday, the children, and I have lived ever since we came to this
country a while ago.
Do come into the living room. You’ll have to be careful
as you sit on the sofa; you see, one of its legs is missing and it’s supported
by a set of wooden planks. What is it you hesitatingly say? Can’t we afford a
new sofa? Yes, we can, but there aren’t any in the shops so we (and
you) will have to make do with this one for now.
Let me get you some water to
drink. Why do you look surprised?
Because we use cups to drink water from? Oh, we use these very cups to serve
water, tea, soup, curries, and post dinner deserts too – with a lot of washing
up in between, don’t worry - haha! Why?
Well, obviously, because we haven’t any glasses or bowls - they aren’t
available, you see. Perhaps we’ll get some back from our next trip to India or we’ll
have some when the country’s socialist regime imports a consignment from
Europe, but who knows when that will be?
You like the kurta I’m wearing? Thanks! I hand stitched
it myself. I was lucky to get a few yards of cloth from one of the “souks”
nearby, and I used the “newspaper draft” (which my mother had made for me) to
cut out my kurta and churidar and hand stitch them myself using threads and
needle. Why? There aren’t any sewing machines in the market, that’s why, and
the few Arab dresses available in the shops aren’t my style at all, being all
flowy and very flashy.
Let me get you some tea. Maybe you can watch television
while you wait for me to do so. I’m afraid you can only watch government
propaganda on local Arabic channels and the transmission isn’t great, but it’s
television! Can’t give you newspapers or magazines to browse through because we
don’t get any, and if we do, they’re at least a couple of weeks old. You can engage
yourself in one of my five books if you wish – I have a P G Wodehouse, a
Richard Gordon, a Ruth Prawer Jhabwala, and two Mills and Boons. I know the books backwards because there
aren’t any other books to read and I’ve read these so often!
Telephone? No one
has any; once a month, we walk to the post office to place a call to India and
to check our little postbox very hopefully to see if a letter has arrived from
home, though it usually takes about three weeks to reach us!
I’m glad you liked the tea. Our tap water is incredibly
salty, and I’ve used the “maiya halwa” or sweet drinking water which Uday has
lugged up three floors in big jerrycans, so you’d better like it! Joking! Just
for you to know, the tea is Sri Lankan, the sugar is Cuban, and the powdered milk
is from Holland.
Every single thing in this country is imported and it’s all incredibly
subsidized – if it’s available. You can buy a can of fizzy soda and a khubz
(loaf of bread) smeared with harissa (spicy dressing) for just 1 Dinar –
everything’s affordable for the poorest person in the country – except that everybody
gets paid the same and rather well so there aren’t any poor people. Also, in spite of oil rich Libya having the
second highest per capita income in the world, there’s not much one can buy
because of regime-sponsored scarcity that has citizens line up in long, snaking
queues to shop for bare essentials.
Interesting, isn’t it?
You wonder what I’m doing in
this country? You feel sorry for me? Oh,
but there’s no need to. We made an informed decision coming here fully aware of
the upside and the downside, and we’ve seldom been happier. We’ve learnt to whittle
down our needs, and honestly, one’s truest needs are so few!
Our minimalistic
lifestyle has nurtured resilience and acceptance in us. It is really a question
of liking what you get because you can’t always get what you like. “Maalish,”
we say when things don’t go the way we wanted them to - that’s Arabic for “it
doesn’t matter.” Amongst friends, humorous takes about the situation here have
been elevated to a fine art and we’re able to laugh in the face of adversity. Can
anything be more wonderful?
Besides, this country has
given us that which we would never have got anywhere else. Countless hours of
togetherness and quality time spent with each other and our children; we know
that when we move back to India, we will never have the luxury of so many free
hours again. We take the boys to the garden, we play with them, try out
origami, and enjoy stories– none of which needs us to possess “things!”
In the years to come, we’ll have learnt to be happy
“in spite of” the things we do not possess and not “because of” the things we do
– you appreciate the difference? Great! Well, bye, then, and thank you for
visiting us. It was lovely having you over.
And so, we’re back in 2019 and in
good old Pune. In the here and now, life
is different from the simpler, unspoiled one we led for seven years as a young
family living through each day with very few expectations and finding happiness
in little things that we would, in later years, consider inconsequential. Minimalism
having been appreciated and enjoyed in Tripoli, I feel perfectly justified in
exploring the other end of the spectrum (maximalism?) in Pune and experiencing
the pure joy of conspicuous consumption.
So, it was without remorse that I
made my to-do list. Shopping for gifts
that need to be bought for the family (I headed the list of
people-to-be-shopped-for but that’s a top secret!), Diwali snacks to prepare
(ambitious) or…...
