`Don't be plastic' is a cliche monotonously being used for someone who is emotionally cold. However, something plastic conveyed a lot of emotions in an Indian family, and it was the now scorned `plastic bags'. The meme below is a true representative of that fact.
Image obtained from internet and does not belong to me.
Each household worth its salt had a panoply of plastic bags. Bags were stored in different plastic bags, as per their genre. Bags used to be held under beds, in almirahs and most of them in a big bag and hung to the kitchen's hinges. There were the lucky bags, stylish bags, the sturdy ones, and the cheap ones. Needless to say, the bag from a foreign country in which the stray relative brought some gift was the pride of the family.
The bag from the luckiest shop used to be the vault for the precious documents of the household. Clothes purchase from big brands was stored in the same cover, just to enhance the family prestige and as a seal of authenticity. And it hardly mattered that nobody got to see the cover in which the garment was stored. I have seen people pleading with a salesman for an extra bag.
In families prone to confabulations, job-seekers in the households got the bag from a prominent brand to carry their testimonials to an interview. It was believed that such an act ennobled the individual, his education, and also his family.
The sturdy bags were reserved for buying vegetables from the market. Usually, these bags came along with the footwear you brought. They were also used to carry a lunch box to school and offices. Few of them who could not afford school bags used plastic bags instead. There was always a plastic bag in every office/ school goers lunch box, carrying bag to double up as a rain cap to counter the omnipresent rains in Bangalore.
The cheap ones found their purpose to dispose of garbage or give it to visitors to carry stuff. If a visitor was given a precious plastic bag, it indicated their propinquity to the family.
Today plastic bags have given way to the more dangerous `polypropylene bags'. Like our beliefs, we have jumped from the scorching desert into the mouth of a volcano.
What is your take?
