It was just a rhetorical question. A comment made to a young relative who had come to Delhi from Chandigarh for a family wedding. I was intrigued by her faux pearl-studded pink top and wondered out loud about how the Beautiful Young Thing managed to have it cleaned. Pat came the ennui-laden reply: “Oh, I wear it a couple of times and throw it away.” She might as well have added: “Who is this miserly oldie, asking such stupid questions?” Well, sustainability was obviously something she didn’t care about.
The dumping brigade
These days most of us are in self-imposed exile at home, trying to keep the other big C — COVID-19 — away. We have plenty of time to replay the past in our minds: our missteps, indulgences, carelessness, and much else. Many of my relatives and friends belong to the “throwaway brigade”. Actually, make that the “dumping brigade”, from food not even halfway to its sell-by date, to an outfit or furniture bought even less than a year ago.
This story is from the April - May 2020 edition of Verve.
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This story is from the April - May 2020 edition of Verve.
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