That thingy..

My children love to keep  some of their childhood treasures for their children. Yaya kept all the special books ( classics) I bought her. My son kept entire collection of Pokémon Gameboy games and baby has so much junk including a calling card from spaghetti factory Seattle !!

I don’t have anything from my childhood to give my children ( not even photos) and the only thing I can share with them are my memories. My children ask the most oddest questions sometimes and yesterday baby asked me “Mom, what is the one thing you used often as a child and that we will never use?”

(That question is open to all of you, please leave a comment.)

As you can see, it really was a tough question. I thought of my first ‘foreign’ pencil case. It was bulky, made of plastic and the cover was filled with sponge and had magnets on it. I spent hours opening and closing the pencil case cover. But my children too have various types of pencil cases and still use them.

I went through all the things I used and couldn’t find something that my children never used. There had to be something, I was sure of it, after all Technology has advanced so much and a lot of things have become obsolete. Eventually I found one thing.

It is a thing that I don’t know the name in English or Malayalam.

The first time I saw this thingy was when my father brought his office files home. His office files were a mess with paper falling out and sticking out of the folder, making it a really ugly sight. But someone had tried to hold it all together with the nameless thing..A small piece of orange and red twine with a metal piece on either end.

The last time I used that thing was for my final MBBS exam. All the additional answer sheets had to be tied to the original answer sheet. I had to tie my answer sheets with a kurukkettu ( knot that can’t be undone), so no one will swap my answer sheets.

I have not seen that thingy since I left India and even after explaining to my children, they still don’t get it. They think a stapler would work very well. Little do they know, sometimes in life we all need that thing..to hold all the irregular, out of shape things together, that an ordinary staple will not do..

20 thoughts on “That thingy..

  1. I can think of a few things that I used that my kid will never use..

    Simple string used to tie exam papers
    rotary phones
    school uniforms
    black and white TV

    • MS: Small piece of twine ( white)..haven’t seen that for ages. My friend has a rotary phone.. All elementary schools and most high schools here still have Uniforms. Black and white TV..my kids have never seen that.

  2. Can audio and video cassettes be included in this??? Fountain pens (Hero pens), razor blades (Gillette- for pencil sharpening), naranga mithai, those Parry’s candies and chocolates…..
    I remember those magnetic pencil boxes. I envied all my friends whose father were in the Gulf. I never had one of those. Also those scented notebooks… Sigh!! Your blog sure brings back a lot of memories

    • Nee: Naranga muttai, palli muttai, kadala muttai Parry’s hard candy that used to come in a green wrapper..all history. My children still have a full collection of Pokémon video cassettes. I don’t think they have ever seen a razor blade. ( I probably have one in my sewing box, that I used to use to unpick thread)

  3. Definitely cassettes and cassette players… I don’t think I can even explain to my son what that is… LOL… Also probably a camera with film unless he’s planning to go into serious film developing in the dark room…here’s something he’ll never do – take a taxi car with 15 other kids packed like sardines to school instead of a school bus..:D

    • Thumbi: The first time I took Yaya to India, we travelled in a rickshaw and yaya screamed ‘shut the door’ the entire journey.. I never went in a taxi to school. I had to walk..

  4. Is it the tag u are talking about. We still have them around for exams 🙂
    How about slatum kallu pencilum koode mashithanduchediyum have u used it? Also the box for carrying books instead of bags? box of aluminium which gradually changed to plastic briefly before vanishing altogether. and then casettes and walkman which was in thing even in the early 2000, 2001 before disappearing forever. have u worn spring vala?!!! 🙂 🙂

    • Martha: If you used Mashi thandu.. then perhaps you remember, kanneer thulli? It was a grass like plant and had a little drop of water like thing on it, that you break and apply in your eye.. I had the Aluminium briefcase like school bag..it just vanished one day. Yaya had a a spring vala when she was little, she called it slinky..

    • Nitha: I still have a phone like that. After the last floods and when the power went off and I couldn’t contact anyone, I bought a wall phone..corded..but no one uses it though..

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