THE SHOPPING BAG

For generations we have had a joint family tradition, consisting of an older man and his wife, his sons and unmarried daughters, his sons’ wives and children and so on. The family is headed by the patriarch, who would make decisions on economic and social matters on behalf of the entire family. The patriarch's wife generally exerted control over the household. and wielded considerable influence in domestic matters.  In fact the locality in which I grew up used to look literally like one  joint family as most of the houses were juxtaposed and resting against each other in such a fashion that one could leap from one roof to another and reach to the end of at least ten houses if not more. And in the process peep in to the courtyard or balcony of the neighbours, accosting and appropriately wishing anyone who cared to notice us. This also offered an opportunity to get a glimpse of the happenings in a particular household. Those were the days indeed!

A neighbour, Gupta uncle and his wife, however lived in a portion of the next door house separated from the rest of the members of their own family living in the same three storied house. Gupta aunty reportedly had problems adjusting with the rest of the family or vice versa. She was known all over the place as a belligerent and a bad mouthed person.

One fine morning hell broke loose in the neighbourhood. A couple of days back Sharma uncle, who again was a neighbour, while going to the market had borrowed a shopping bag from Gupta aunty, with an assurance to return it the same day. Now for over a week he was seen carrying the same bag for shopping passing in front of Gupta house. Gupta aunty noticed it and wanted it back immediately as she was concerned about its wear and tear with such frequent use. Prodded by her, Gupta uncle made several rounds to Sharma house. Sharma Aunty refused to return it. Tempers ran so high that the word spread across the entire neighbourhood. Residents of the colony appeared curious to have a glimpse of this now fabled bag that brought such a storm in its wake. The issue threatened to snowball in to an epic war almost of Mahabharata dimensions akin to Duryodhan’s refusal to part even with a needle point of land!

Old Polonius counsels his hotheaded son Laertes, who is about to embark for Paris for his gentleman's education

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
(Hamlet Act 1, scene 3)

Anyone can make an honest mistake of forgetting to return a borrowed item or money; no matter how aggravating it might be for the rightful owner or lender. From the legal perspective in order to be accused of stealing or theft, you would have to have the criminal intent called mens rea. But it was a case where Sharma aunty simply refused to return the shopping bag which was voluntarily lent by Gupta aunty. Gupta aunty claimed to have been bequeathed with this bag by her dying mother. Therefore it had a tremendous sentimental value. It was priceless like the Kohinoor, now a part of the British crown jewels that historically belonged somewhere else.

History illustrates a very important truth. Inventions, discoveries, modifications or improvement in an existing product are seldom the work of any one mind. These are either an aggregation or the final step of a progression. It is not known when the world started to use shopping bags and made of what stuff, but Walter H Deubner, who ran a small grocery shop in St. Paul, Minnesota was looking for a way to give his business a boost. He noticed that his customers’ purchases were limited by what they could conveniently carry. It took him four years to develop the right solution: a paper bag with a cord running through it for strength. Deubner named his new product after himself, calling it the’ Deubner shopping bag’ and sold it for five cents. He patented his product and within three years by 1815, was selling over a million shopping bags a year!

In 1852 the Queen Victoria decided to reshape the diamond and it was taken to a Dutch jeweler Mr. Cantor who cut it to 108.93 carats. Back home our Gupta aunty’s mother had specially hand sewn the bag customized for the shopping of groceries and vegetables for their household requirements. Gupta aunty claimed it to be an original innovation.

A very dear friend of mine, a famous person of great repute once visited my small library at home and borrowed two volumes from my collection of books with a promise to return these soon. Books are another item which once borrowed is very difficult to retrieve. A year went by. Another year went past. We met once or twice in the intervening years. I remembered but didn’t have the heart to remind him. There's just something in particular about books, which makes borrowers feel that it's okay not to return them. We could even find the borrowed book prominently displayed on the borrower’s coffee table. English writer and essayist Charles Lamb observes "Borrowers of books, those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes."

After paying 5 pounds as entry fee I entered Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, known as the Tower of London, a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, the other day. It houses the crown jewels and the star attraction is the Kohinoor. It was indeed a tribute to the British business sense that you were paying to see something that belonged to you

It is believed that the diamond was first mentioned more than 5000 years ago in a Sanskrit script, where it was called the Syamantaka. Until 1304 the diamond was in the possession of the rajas of Malwa but back then the diamond was still not named Kohinoor. In 1304 it belonged to the emperor of Delhi Alauddin Khilji.

In 1339 the diamond was taken back to the city of Samarkand where it stayed for almost 300 years. In 1526 the Moghul ruler Babur mentions the diamond in Baburnama. The diamond was gifted to him by Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi. Later, Auranzeb protected the diamond diligently and passed it on to his heirs.

Mahamad, the grandson of Aurangzeb was not a great ruler like his great father. He in 1739 lost the decisive battle and had to surrender to Nadir Shah. It was Nadir Shah who gave the diamond its current name Kohinoor meaning “mountain of light”. But Nadir Shah did not live long because in 1747 he was assassinated and the diamond got to one of his generals Ahmed Shah Durrani.

A descendant of Ahmed Shah, Shah Shuja Durrani brought the Kohinoor back to India in 1813 and gave it to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1849 after the conquest of Punjab by the British forces, the Kohinoor was transferred to the British East India Company in Lahore. One line of the Treaty of Lahore was dedicated to the fate of the Kohinoor.  The diamond was shipped to Britain. In July 1850 the diamond was handed over to Queen Victoria who wore it occasionally afterwards. After her death the Kohinoor became part of the crown jewels, notwithstanding an unceasing, relentless, emotional and patriotic rhetoric to restore it where it rightfully belonged.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German philosopher said “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” 
Indeed we keep on repeating the same mistake over and over again and do not take note of how the wise men and sages dealt with many such or similar vexatious issues.

A friend asked Molla Nasreddin, "Can I borrow 1000 toman from you for three months?"

"Well," Nasreddin replied, "I can fulfill half of your loan request."

"Okay, that's fine," the friend said. "I'm sure I can get the other 500 toman somewhere else."

"You misunderstood me," Nasreddin replied. "The half of your loan request I agreed to was the time: the three months. As for the 1000 toman, I cannot give it to you."