I can abstain from most things but there is one thing that I
cannot do without. The handbag. Not just one handbag, but I must unabashedly
confess, a closet full of them.
The only way to get rid of some is to give them away but
then after doing that, I crave for more to fill that gaping void and so the
cycle of buying and giving away repeats itself. It used to be shoes but since
corns, blisters and bunions appeared, I’ve resigned myself to sensible ones,
which sad to say are certainly not the trendiest looking shoes.
Even as a child I love to toggle a little handbag across my
arm when I went shopping with my mother. It was the perfect place to house the
occasional treat or the handkerchief for the runny nose. (Yes, in those days we
used embroidered handkerchiefs that were neatly ironed)
The fact that a handbag can be used to keep almost anything
is also fodder for spoofs.
In the return of Mr Bean Episode Two, we see the infamous
funny man at a restaurant. First, he writes his own birthday card, and orders a
‘Steak Ta-ta’. He finds he doesn’t quite enjoy the steak and so secretly
disposes of it in the ashtray, the vase, the bun, the sugar bowl, the
violinist’s trousers and yes, in another diner’s handbag!
Sometimes I wonder what people carry in their very big
handbags. Maybe a big handbag is like Doraemon’s front pocket that houses everything imaginable.
Or it may be like Felix the Cat’s magic bag of wonders.
If clothes maketh
the man, then handbags maketh the
lady.
I would like to think that what we have in our bags reveal a
lot about who we are. The usual stuff that we carry would be the purse,
tissues, spectacles, pen, notebook and lipstick for a start.
The contents of bags we carry reflect the responsibilities
we hold. A graduate school student’s oversized satchel contains her laptop and
notes and a young mother on her day out with the baby probably has disposable
diapers in her bag as well. When I was doing free lance reporting, I even had a
pair of beautiful shoes in the bag as I hopped from bus to train in my
trainers.
The mind associates the things that we see lacking in our
surroundings with the things that we must provide for ourselves. For example, I
can hardly find regular chilli sauce nor toothpicks at the café tables here. So, before I leave the house, I find myself
putting strange stuff into my bag - sachets of chilli sauce, toothpicks, dental
floss and other unmentionable things. Sometimes the things that I put into my
bag are not for myself alone but for the
others that I’m going out with, just in case that friend, that child or the
beloved has forgotten to bring. An extra pack of tissues always comes in handy.
So what goes into the handbag often spells practicality and
multi tasking.
Just the other day I was out at lunch when I found that I
simply could not finish the copious amounts of food in front of me. Needless to
say, my eyes were bigger than my belly when I saw the menu. In most places
here, diners do not bring home leftovers. Whatever is left on the plate goes
into the bin. That certainly would be a no-no for me so out came a container
from the handbag.
The beloved said I had to do it discreetly but I said I have
lived long enough to do necessary things covertly without a shade of shame.
Apparently the average handbag weighs 1 – 2 kg even though some may weigh a bit
more. The trend now is to have a little bag for essential stuff so that the
little bag can be taken out and transferred into any other bag. Small is the
new big according to fashion gurus. Sometimes it is not just one small bag but
a few smaller bags in a big bag as women opt for the modular approach.
To turn all philosophical, what we put into our handbag can
be an object lesson in itself. When we actually give the contents of our bag a
good look, we can repack it. Throw out the unnecessary stuff so that we are not
carrying a burden but a thing of beauty instead.
That is what is going to take us ahead, not weigh us down.
Source:THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY NEW STRAITS TIMES 25 October 2015 http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/10/true-burden-handbags
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