“Where are the lids?”
That was the scream that came from our kitchen one Sunday morning. A scream every Indian family knows very well. The scream of somebody trying to find the correct lid for a plastic container.
I walked in bravely to help.
Big mistake.
Because what followed was not a simple kitchen exercise. It was archaeology.
Somewhere in every Indian kitchen exists a drawer or shelf filled with plastic containers. Not one or two. Hundreds. Small ones. Big ones.
Round ones. Square ones. Transparent ones stained permanently orange from curry made sometime during the last century.
And every single one has lost its lid.
Or worse, every lid belongs lovingly and faithfully to another container.
You pick up one lid. Too small.
Another. Too large.
One fits halfway but refuses emotional commitment.
And then comes the most dangerous sentence in Indian family history:
“Don’t throw that container. It may be useful someday.”
Useful for what?
Nobody knows.
But we preserve these containers with greater loyalty than family heirlooms. We may lose important documents, but not old ice cream boxes.
In fact, I have opened a refrigerator expecting ice cream and found sambhar.
Those disappointments shape trauma. You see a beautiful ice cream tub smiling at you from inside the fridge. Your heart dances. You open it with joy and suddenly discover yesterday’s bitter gourd sabzi staring back at you like an insult from destiny.
But somewhere I realised this madness does not begin with plastic containers.
It begins with baggage.
The baggage our parents carried after years of scarcity. The fear that there may not be enough tomorrow. So keep everything today.
And we inherited that fear lovingly.
Which is why Indians never throw anything away.
Gift wrapping paper is folded neatly and stored as though future generations may study it in museums. Plastic covers are hidden inside bigger plastic covers. Old birthday ribbons sit in drawers waiting for a second innings. Buttons from shirts that died twenty years ago are preserved with military discipline.
And every takeaway container is washed carefully because perhaps one day civilisation itself may collapse and only our kitchen shelf will save humanity.
Our cupboards are not cupboards anymore. They are rehabilitation centres for retired plastic.
And have you noticed that plastic containers reproduce secretly at night? You buy three.
Within two months there are seventeen.
Nobody purchased them. Nobody remembers where they came from. Yet there they stand proudly when you open the cabinet and three fall directly on your head.
Sometimes I think if aliens ever visit India, they will not judge us by our politics or culture.
They will quietly open one kitchen cupboard, see thousands of saved containers, and leave immediately. They don’t want a garbage dump called earth, with old containers, and old leaders, who should also be thrown away...!
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