Thursday, July 28, 2005

Packrat!


According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, packrat is one who collects or hoards especially unneeded items[If it is Pack rat(2 words), then it is a rodent which hoards food and miscellaneous objects!]! Anyway, it was along with Caillou(the little fella in PBS Kids show of the same name) that I learnt this word and felt overjoyed that there is a term for such obsessions!

As long as I can remember, I have been a packrat! I would collect almost anything from ticket stubs, feathers, colour paper, jigina paper to paper cuttings, posters, greetings etc. But that does not mean my shelves would be shabby. It used to be my favourite hobby to pull everything out of my shelves, admire everything and arrange them back. Amma would threaten to throw my collections out everytime we moved(and we moved a lot!) but somehow I managed to drag along with me all my 'pokkishams'!

It was only after my marriage when I moved abroad that Amma and my dear thambi got the chance that they had been waiting for! Though I intelligently carried a few of my dearest things along with my 'seeru'(parting from my Aamir Khan posters were the hardest!! Background song: 'Mera kuch saamaan....' from Ijazad)! It was most upsetting when my folks triumphantly boasted about having busted my remaining collections that I vowed not to collect anymore items.

I could not collect things like before anyway as in the first couple of years of our marriage, we moved three times! But these past few years, to our amazement, we have not moved and things have got collected themselves!! And now, my daughter is hoarding little things in her bondu(s)!!!

9 comments:

tt_giant said...

he he.. my great grandmother used to collect stuffs too. she said it may be useful someday..

all i collect these days are bills, and just bills!

jack said...

There must be lot of holes in your house :).

Balaji said...

LOL. i guess we've all been packrats @ some time. i used to collect matchbox covers at 1 time! seems so silly now. and my daughter too hoards all sorts of stuff in all sorts of places :)

Balaji said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Me too said...

Deepak, guess you escaped from inheriting some genes from your great grandmom! Mine comes from my grandmom!!

Senthil, so far our house remains whole :-) but holes are not too far!!

Balaji, match box covers? To make train or phone? Good to know that my daughter has company!

Balaji said...

thats just the thing... it wasnt to make anything. we collected matchbox covers just as a competitive hobby. the ones on the pack of 12 or 24 matchboxes were jumbo ones that were most sought after :)

Vinesh said...

Hey good to see some more fellow packrats here :-)
My packratedness here:

http://vineshks.blogspot.com/2005/07/book-of-records.html

@Esp Balaji: Good to see another matchbox label collector. Of course i'm an ex-collector now :-(

Me too said...

Balaji, from Vinesh's comments I guess, matchboxes are evergreen charmers!

Collector Vinesh, too bad you lost out on the records. So, I have given you this collector title!

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