Living on this side of the world that groans as it carries ~15% of the world’s population, one receives greater share of what would be regarded a normal share of geographically specific events. India is of course known world over — I was once stopped by a security guard who sounded strongly of East African origin, at the US airport several years ago and asked why every Indian he sees seems to have a job in the software sector (the word “commbuter” gave him away).
India — of the travel posters, you see the lovely women draped in bright colors with pots on their heads against the light brown sand, their loose clothes gently flowing with the breeze. Wow — India!
Never mind that they are walking miles to get a pot of water and live in a society so paternalistic that they have to cover their heads.
Visitors who come to India need to experience it like it is. I’m not talking about the Golden Chariot trains that most Indian families would have to sell their kidneys to buy tickets on. Or staying at the Taj and gushing about the wonderful food that is served. You need to dunk that shot, rub in the lime with salt and … ask yourself: Why did the Indian cross the road?
Any visitor to the country of the Aravallis who knocks the Taj (Mahal) and Kumarakom House Boats off their bucket lists, without crossing an Indian road, telling the traffic “Talk to the hand” hasn’t really cut it, according to me. Zebra crossings are a mere suggestion in India.
Quora will give you a ton of Indian idiosyncrasies. One that you cannot get away from, in India is the great Indian safety pin. Our country has an infinite number of languages, religious beliefs, traditional styles of clothes that defy logic — we harbor atheists, extremists, obnoxious believers and those who live only to make fun of others’ beliefs. And what is it that holds us together? The humble safety pin.
Schools in India — the Government run ones especially — are notorious for their lack of standards, supplies, teachers, sometimes students. The ones that are around (and in your private schools as well), they have one thing in common. That broken buckle of a pant held in place by the safety pin. The rip on the side of the skirt now made invisible by a well placed safety pin. Bags that are retrofitted with a few to make them run for a few years more.
Stores abound with safety pins, large and small ones, brass vs steel ones, thin ones and ones that would need to be hammered through to put in place. Like the pen that one can NEVER find to note down a phone number while talking on the phone, the ubiquitous safety pin — no matter how many you buy, makes a sly disappearance just the morning when a button falls off a shirt, or a saree of silk behaves like it is coated with teflon.
The one place that is a guaranteed storehouse of safety pins — is an Indian woman’s necklace. For Hindu women, it is the MangalaSutra. A married Hindu woman’s necklace, incomplete without a religious motif, is equally incomplete without a collection of safety pins.
It is the place you look for to save the day when the last bag in your house decides to give way or the pants you thought fit you well in the store turned out to be a size too big.
Calling a safety pin the cornerstone of a country may be calling it a bit too much. But safe to say, when Walter Hunt filed the patent for this humble invention about 270 years ago in 1849 (and I’m sure the India he knew (probably) was the land of tigers, elephants and lions — not to mention snake charmers), little would he foresee how, while the country got rid of all its wildlife, they would find a place in everyday life for his patented product.
One cannot underestimate the power of this little bent piece of metal. Who is to say that the Indian Prime Minister’s fashion statement is not made by little bits of Patent # US6281 behind the cloth? Or the flowing robes of Aishwarya Rai as she prances around gracefully in the depressing melodrama Devdas did so in the confidence of her many little silent metal assistants holding her many raiments in place? Ask our beautifully bedecked brides what would marriage day (or married life) look like without multitudes of these thin metal finger restrainers.
As our God’s Own Country struggles to overcome the ravages of the rains and lakhs of individuals live in camps holding on to their last threads of dignity and belongings, there would be enough numbers of this quiet metallic clasp all over the place, making sure their lives are held together on the road to recovery.
Hail be the power of simplicity. So the next time you want one and can’t find it in the dresser drawer — you know where (or with who) to look for it. And as you click it in place bringing your racing pulse to normal, spare a thought for the humble safety pin.
