The Things We Leave Behind

After my grandmother’s death, we found drawers filled with knick-knacks her pilot son would bring her. Is it our anxiety to not forget and not be forgotten that makes us collect things?

- Sandip Roy

DID YOU READ ABOUT what Mrinal Sen’s son has done with his parents’ things?” my mother asked admiringly.

It turned out that on the first anniversary of the legendary filmmaker’s death, earlier this year, his son and daughter-in-law, who live in Chicago, hosted a unique open house in Kolkata. They had let friends, wellwishers, acquaintances help themselves to anything they wanted from Sen’s possessions. The Left Front’s chairman, Biman Bose, had taken Sen’s bed to donate to the People’s Relief Committee, a diagnostic centre. A film society had taken his glasses. A shawl had been kept aside for actor Nandita Das. Sen’s starched white kurta–pyjamas had gone to ordinary people who needed them. I understood my mother’s amazement. We come from generations of pack rats. We collect things. We have not quite learnt the art of disposing of them.

When my grandmother died, we discovered in her drawers French soaps that had practically turned into stone, with not a whiff of lavender fragrance remaining. She had received them as gifts and saved them for years, waiting for a special occasion worthy of a foreign soap. My uncle—her son— was a pilot. He would bring back little sachets of eau-de-cologne-soaked tissues they handed out as fresheners. After my grandmother’s death, we found drawers filled with dozens of packets of fresheners and aeroplane cutlery, all neatly stacked and saved for some achhe din.