We were a green family

A few days back I read an interesting article in a leading newspaper. The author was saying about the 'green' concepts which used to be a part and parcel of her mom's everydaylife.She mentioned about worn out socks being recycled and used as scrubber to remove the tough stains in the cooking vessels, much before the 'scotch brites' of the world.

Immediately my mind went back to my early childhood days and the 'zero garbage' which was the religion for us those days. Of course it was a natural way and no tags were attached then.

Let me start with appa. He was a professor in a college, and used to get lots of reading materials. Some of it used to be on one side of the sheet only. After being done with them, he will carefully put them aside and amma used to stich it into a notebook. Of course we believed in community work and all of us used to pitch in. These were used as 'rough note books'. I still remember my teacher in 6th standard, aghast at the 'handmade' and a very rough 'rough note book'.These note books were also used by appa and amma for writing 'sriramajayam'.

Appa used the 'used envelopes' in the same way that Gandhiji was said to use them. He would open them out and reverse it and the odd shaped paper will be used for solving maths problems (for us of course!).Amma also used to total her shopping 'account' in them deligently.

Envelops which were of better quality were retained as such. The existing address portion will be superimposed with a small strip of white paper, and it is now ready to be used as a fresh envelope! Yes you guessed it, the strip will invariably be the reverse side of another envelope!

Again, I dont remember going to a shop and buying gum. I see such varied and stylish and colourful gums that kids use so readily these days for their project work. We used a simple cooked rice and water system as our standard gum material. Of course when we had extensive decoration work during 'kolu', we made a colourful paste from maida. It used to be a big process, and neem stick used to be the glue stick to ladle out the glue on to the colour papers.I also remember the colourful resins which used to ooze out of the 'drumstick' tree in our backyard. It can be used as a gum, but it was used more for play and fooling around and not for any serious work!

Appa used to get answer papers for correction from the University. The postman used to deliver them in huge bundles, wrapped in 'meenakshi gaada' cloth. No it was not a simple job of tearing it open and throwing the cloth and the brown paper covers into the dustbin. We used to remove the cloth carefully along the seams. It used to be washed and then given to the dhobhi for bleaching. At the end of an 'exam season', we would have a fairly large collection of these clothes in all shapes and sizes. Amma used to sit and match the clothes as per the shapes and stich them as hand towels, napkins, pillow covers and cloth bags. Needless to add, we were also drafted in to this 'kudisai tozhil'.

The brown paper covers will be used to send back the answer sheets to the university; yes you got the drift, by pasting them with a white paper.

There were no fancy 'gillette' razors those days. Appa used the 7 o' clock blades for his shave. He used to preserve them for I guess four or five shaves. He used to write the dates on which he used them on the flap of the cover. We were not allowed to use them even for any 'urgent' work.After the fourth or fifth time, he used to release them for 'general usage"!

Just a minute, we will take a short break! I will be back. Dont go away.