WITH A LITTLE TLC, OLD THINGS CAN BE AS GOOD AS NEW!

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a friend showed me how to make diyas out of candle stubs. We were both not even 10 at the time, and she led the way in our adventures.

Fortunately, in this instance, she realized we needed adult assistance – supervision was not something she would readily submit to!

If I recall correctly, this is how it went. We dug a small hole in the kitchen garden behind her home and got her older brother to place a couple of candles in it. Over these, we laid a grid of burnt-out Diwali sparkler stems. On this was placed an empty clay diya, the kind that our mothers would have filled with oil and a wick to place before the puja. Into this went some of the melted down candles of all colours we had collected from those that had lit our homes the previous days for Diwali. Then we sat back and waited for the candles below to heat the wax in the diya and melt it into a lovely rainbow swirl of colours. Her brother helped take the clay diya off the grid and insert a wick we had fashioned out of cotton swabs into it. And voila! We had a new diya! Each diya was unique, based on the colours of the stubs that had melted into it.

Our parents duly admired our handiwork – after handing out the requisite lecture on the dangers of playing with fire – and were kind enough to refrain from pointing out that we had used up brand new candles to “rescue” candle stubs.

Many years later, I came across a man who was smelting old aluminum pots and pans and pouring it into moulds of Indian deities. It was fascinating to watch as he fished the sizzling moulds out of cold water and presented his audience with Saraswati or Ganesha.

I was reminded of these experiences when Dr Vicki Bismilla shared with me details of The Repair Shop, a show she loves to watch.

The British show is described as “a workshop of dreams, where broken or damaged cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life. Furniture restorers, horologists, metal workers, ceramicists, upholsterers and all manner of skilled craftsmen and women have been brought together to work in one extraordinary space, restoring much-loved possessions to their former glory.”

I love the premise. We come from a culture that repairs and fixes everything from old appliances like toasters and mixers to footwear. Or we used to. A mochi (cobbler) was a fixture on every street corner and one could get a sandal strap that came loose or a heel that came unstuck fixed in no time for a fraction of the cost of new footwear.

Rafu, the art of fixing a tear or a hole in fabric with threads retrieved from the fabric itself, rendering the fix almost invisible, is another dying art from those days. Or so I thought. My brother tells me about Kaketsugi – literally ‘invisible mending’ in Japanese.

Oddity Central website (www.odditycentral.com) has this on Kaketsugi: “With fast fashion being more popular than ever, cloth mending isn’t nearly as necessary as it once was. Got a tear in one of your socks? Just throw it in the trash and get a new pair, they’re cheap and readily available. The same goes for virtually any other garment, so needle and thread mending is a slowly disappearing craft. But what about special garments, what happens when something truly special and dear to our hearts becomes damaged? You can’t just go out and replace something of sentimental value, but you can’t wear it with a hole in it either. That’s where the magical art of kaketsugi comes in.”

In Richie Mehta’s Sidharth, the protagonist fixes zippers for a living. He sets out each morning with a loudspeaker (highly creative!) offering to fix zippers on handbags, backpacks, pants and jackets.

But as people even in small towns move towards disposable items, a use-and-throw approach is changing the landscape. So much simpler than looking for a fix.

But now things seem to be coming full circle. There’s interest in fixing things, prolonging their life or repurposing them.

Grant’s Desi Achiever Ranjana Mitra launched Community Environment Alliance to reduce electronic waste and eliminate the digital divide in Canada. They pioneered the innovative Share-IT program in 2003 to find a sustainable solution to the growing environmental and human health concerns posed by e-waste. It has collected, refurbished and placed in homes 122-plus tonnes of waste electronics. 

Telus was part of an initiative – Canada’s first Circular Economy Month – to repair, repurpose or responsibly recycle old phones that were gathering dust in our homes. And for every phone thus restored, they planted a tree.

According to information published in an ad, they had “upcycled more than 80,000 used handsets” in 2022 and since 2005, diverted over 3.5 million devices from landfills.

Just recently, we learnt of a man who fixes old lamps. We have one such lamp, not an antique, not a family heirloom or of any significant monetary value. It’s just a floor lamp my husband and I purchased many years ago that I love so much it has travelled with us from home to home, country to country.

A few months ago, it stopped working and we thought the time to replace it had come. But doing the rounds of the various stores, we couldn’t find anything we both liked.

A helpful lady at one of the lighting stores asked us just what we were looking for and in chatting with her, I confessed that it was hard trying to replace an old favourite.

“Well, you could always get that fixed, you know,” she suggested. We were astonished to learn that someone actually fixed old lamps. In Canada? In this day and age?

She gave us the contact number of the man who does just that. It was a simple fix, he assured us, after checking out our lamp. We waited while he worked his magic and brought our precious lamp home – as good as new. He charged $50 for his expertise.

Everything needn’t be destined for the landfill. Sometimes a little TLC can give old things a new life.

Judi Dench knows that. She walks into The Repair Shop in one episode to get a locket fixed. And bonus! Their barn looks like Santa’s workshop with friendly elves there ready to create magic!