God too reuses-our souls!

 

God too reuses-our souls!

The Tokyo Olympics and the lone never-before gold in athletics last month have become a blur in our memories now. Other things have slipped into that space to occupy our attention.

Yet the one thing that the world championships left a deep impression on my mind about, is an entirely different facet- how Japan had recycled e-waste to make medals.

Somebody sent me a Facebook video by Eco Freaks on how Japan had recycled thousands of tons of e-waste and extracted 32 kg gold, 3500 kg silver and 2200 kg bronze for the medals.

Wow! Amazing! Impressive! Is all those who watched it, could say.

Why reuse something by simply using it again as it is, or recycling or repurposing it?

Because the entire universe is based on this formula! From amoeba and micro-organisms to home sapiens, we are all recycled, repurposed and upcycled entities, with the addition of appendages and attributes. Thus to me the theory of evolution is based on reuse.  

The law of conservation of mass in physics and chemistry maintains that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, even though it may be rearranged in space, or the reactants in it may change form. (Simplified, as I am not getting into the complications of Fission, Fusion, Matter, Energy, Dark Matter and Dark Energy here).

That means during any chemical reaction and low-energy thermodynamic process in an isolated system, the total mass of the reacting agents, remains equal to the mass of the products.

Everyone’s ready reckoner Wikipedia says,

Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function. Reuse – by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items – helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.

These services facilitate the transaction and redistribution of unwanted, yet perfectly usable, materials and equipment from one entity to another. The entities that benefit from either side of this service (as donors, sellers, recipients, or buyers) can be businesses, nonprofits, schools, community groups, and individuals.

All of us reuse old or never-used-by-the-owner new things because they are free or cheap, beautiful or unique, have emotional or nostalgic value, or just seem to be in too-good-to-be-thrown state.

In most of the Indian families the custom is not to dress a newborn in new clothes for the first few months, so the baby starts with hand-me-downs from family and friends. The system, however, continues as children grow up, with similar voluntary or involuntary contributions from siblings, parents, cousins and families.

I have also seen parents using clothes, shoes and other accessories (mostly expensive ones) which their children had bought maybe as a fad, but did not use.

We happily exchange clothes and knick-knacks with friends and cousins in swap parties, making our bonds stronger.

Saris and dupattas are worn by generations and sisters fight over pinching them from mothers and grandmothers.

In most households old clothes and utensils are given to the maids and they complain only if you have been too mean with the quality.

The curtains which have lived their full life go to make cushions or beds for pets.

Remember the new academic session in school when a major source of excitement was covering our books and note-books with newspapers and the white backs of old calendars?

Ah, the strange things that we have made in craft classes with plastic bottles, corks, tin cans and cords.

During student years we might not gladly accept dog-eared books but go begging for the smarter ones’ notes.

Every household proudly displays for use an article painted/knitted/sewed/made by grandma’s ‘own two hands’ and/or books with fragile breakable pages from great grandfather’s half-a-century-old collection, handed down to them.

In the kitchen we use vegetables peels and bones to make broth, orange and ginger peels as aromatics. Every home cook swears by her avatar of the leftover food.

We reuse jam or liquor bottles, cosmetics jars and bags of groceries and toiletries. Who throws away empty plastic containers of ice cream or take-out foods? All the cardboard boxes of sweets are stored for using them to carry parathas and sandwiches during train journeys and picnics.

Old paper goes to line the shelves in cupboards. Aren’t old sheets used to cover the ironing table, braided to make rugs or kathli quilts?

All their working lives, those in transferable jobs lovingly hoard old newspapers, sheets and towels to pack their household stuff as they lug it around during various movements from one station to another.

We get old furniture and appliances repaired for reuse. We keep trying to get run down batteries recharged. 

Who has not used tyres as swings, but there are other innovative uses of these giant rubber rings too.

We use metal and plastic containers and sacks for growing plants. Manure is the reuse of waste products for gardening and farming. These days we try to reuse the water expelled by the RO pipes for mopping, cleaning or gardening.

One time or the other in our lives, each one of us has looked at a gift we got and wondered if it was part of the to-be-reused stock? And we all have that one drawer where we keep for reuse, the gift bags that we have received.

The types of articles for reuse, however, might change with age and wisdom. We look beyond clothes and covet others’ crockery, handbags and the king of all-jewellery, hoping they are either getting bored of using them or have no use for them now.

We rarely say no to used-before automobiles, art, antiques or buildings?

Music and film makers reuse old ideas as do writers and poets. The world of news and views and even knowledge, lives on reuse of information.

Family names are pre-owned and reused excessively for generations with pride in the legacy.

Isn’t inheritance just a reuse of somebody else’s land or other movable and immovable properties? And rare is that family where some simmering issues or bickering do not exist over how much was left for them for this category of reuse. 

The whole second hand bazaar, including flea markets and thrift shops, auctions and charity organizations, survive on this principle. This provides job opportunities to hundreds of thousands of people on the planet. These include right from your lowly, ill-dressed kabadi wala (scrap dealer) to the slick real estate agent or vintage dealer to Sotheby’s.

Fortunately, reuse does not only save us money, besides time and energy spent in searching or shopping for the articles, it helps conserve nature’s resources and cuts down on emission of greenhouse gases. Reuse gives a longer life to the item which results into it going to the landfill later and without expending any resources in changing it.

For every item reused, a new one is not manufactured and mother earth can breathe a sigh of relief.

Leave us mortals aside. Even God reuses centuries old souls in new bodies. According to Hinduism, He takes an old soul leaving after a body completes its tenure in this lok (world) and with no fear, shame or guilt, reuses it into a new body. If at first glance itself you don’t like somebody, blame it on God: maybe the souls did not match/gel well in earlier lives too.

(In the same way as man gives up old clothes and puts on new ones, the soul removes the old bodies and wears new ones.)

Challenge God? Not me, please. I dare not. So shouldn’t we all reuse as much as is possible?

                                                                                                - Anupama S Mani