It must have been my sixth or seventh birthday. As on any other birthday, I rose up early in anticipation and saw something peeking from the top of a cupboard. My curiosity got the better of me, as I stood on my toes and tugged at the corner. Suddenly the whole package came shattering down. It was a tea set of blue pottery my father had brought from Jaipur after investigating a criminal case there. The crashing sound brought my parents running to the room. While my mother started reprimanding me, my father strangely kept cool and said, “It’s all right. Always remember, life is like glass. A slight misdemeanor can become very expensive. The only difference is if life is lost in any manner, there is no recovery, but broken glass can be replaced by another, if not the same!”
I remembered this when my granddaughter returned home after a family get together to celebrate her third birthday. She proudly brought home a gift. With childlike curiosity she opened the box that had a beautiful pair of expensive glass bowls. Her mother packed them again and turned around to say something to me. The tot tried to remove the parcel to a safer place but it slipped from her hands and the bowls were broken. The poor child looked more shattered than the glass pieces colouring the entire floor. She took refuge in the nearby bedroom with her face buried in pillows. No amount of cajoling could soothe the remorseful and frightened child.
This made me recall my mother’s hatred of any brittle item. She would always complain to my father not to spend on glass or crockery as they were not only breakable but the shards could hurt when one tries to clean up the mess. No wonder, whenever a house is “dressed up” in open glass shelves with lots of glass or porcelain, parents fear to bring children along.
Steel in all its glory was, for my mother, the only real element that could be used safely anywhere. But who’s listening, tuned as we are to the fashion world where style is the name of the game and as a bangle seller told me ages ago when I complained that my little girls were breaking bangles faster that I bought them from her, she snidely smiled and said, “Amma, only if they break them you will buy them and we will make them to earn our daily bread!”
During a visit to a house about six months ago, one of the grandparents was requesting her son and wife to take her grandchild to the nearby park. As the function was not yet over, I asked her as to why she was asking them to leave the house so early. She told me “You know, every art piece on these open shelves is either glass or porcelain and they may be costing lakhs of rupees. My grandson has been trying to get hold of them for the last few hours. I cannot scold him for fear of hurting his parents as the last time I did so at my brother’s house, the little one vowed never to enter my brother’s house again.”
All caution aside, glass could be broken as easily by adults.