Monday, December 29, 2008

Dust Bin, an essay

Dust Bin, is one of the wonders of the modern world, which has been under-valued by the people of the world. One can see Dust Bin in every nook and corner of the world. It can be seen in every house, office, railway station, bus station, space ship, water ship, air ship, 5 star hotel, no start hotel, palace, hut etc. etc. One can name a place in this world and there certainly will be a Dust Bin, quietly doing its job of collecting waste without complaints.

The necessity of Dust Bin is even needed in a virtual world, and hence every computer comes with “Recycle Bin”, which does its job of collecting waste. Though the primary purpose of Dust Bin is to collect and segregate the waste, unfortunately, in computers, people named it as Recycle Bin, which is a secondary use of a Dust Bin.

Dust Bin’s come in various sizes and forms. In a typical Indian house, it would typically be an aged plastic vessel which has retired from its primary purpose (Water Bucket, paint box etc.). It’s funny that in an Indian house hold, a vessel which has retired never gets classified as waste, but gets used as waste collector Dust Bin. This is a very interesting nature of enterprising Indian house hold I guess. From an Indian view point, any vessel like structure which can hold piece of matter can become a Dust Bin.

Modern people have shown ingenuity in creating Bins in new shapes and forms. Some examples are, Bins which can opened by foot pedal, bins with swiveling tops which helps in automatic closure, bins which come in colourful pictures, etc. etc. Dust Bin’s have been made from plastic, steel, copper, silver, gold (anything and everything) etc. Reader might be startled by seeing Gold in the list. Rich people in India, used gold or silver bins to spit the Pan Juice (Juice created when one chews betel leaves with nuts and tobacco). In the modern world, the quality of Dust Bins, also determines of the status and culture of an individual, hence, has gained value in its status.

It is difficult to say, what point in time of the human evolution, Dust Bin was invented. In the historic world, the collected waste was used as manure in the farm lands or in the Garden. One could guess this was one of the reasons, why people started collecting the waste. As the world created lot of crap in the name of science and ease of use. Usage and processing of waste became a bigger challenge to the modern world.

One of the interesting characteristics of Dust Bin is, every individual at some point of time in their life have skimmed through the contents to find something. Most searches for lost materials in any place either start or end at the Dust Bin. It is also interesting, the amount of useful things which can be found in a Dust Bin in searches like this. One can relate Dust Bin to Pandora’s Box in such scenarios.

There are a lot of professions in modern world that are dependent on Dust Bins. The collection of Dust Bins of the clients and skimming through them for information is the first step of any detective assignment. Interestingly, detectives do not have a hesitation in skimming through waste of their targets. This is one of the professions which value the Dust Bins and the content within it.

In the bigger cities, big business institutions have been born to manage the huge amount of waste produced by the population of the city. Dust Bins are a bread earner to people employed in these industries. These organisations deal with Dust Bins of various sizes and shapes and can be called as experts in the area. I guess if there was a God for Dust Bins, people in these industries would be worshiping them. Interestingly, India being a country of multiple Gods has not created one for Dust Bins. It is shame on the modern India for not having created a God for Dust Bins.

Other than the formal professions, there are individuals who have made a profession out of searching through the Dust Bins of streets, area etc. These people make a living by searching, finding and selling material found in these Bins. These people can be typically be found in cities skimming through the Dust Bins, in search of plastic, wooden, metal, paper etc. Dust Bin is such an instrument, which holds the things which are waste for one set of people and also things that are valuable for another set of people.

Dust Bins, have been the source of art also in the modern era. Various artists have created wonderful art works out of the stuff from the Dust Bins. House wives of 1970-80 eras, were very skillful in creating art out of the material from the Dust Bin. This breed of artists, have increased the status of Dust Bins in the modern era by seeing art in the contents of the Dust Bin. Thanks to these artists, peoples knowledge of Dust Bin has increased.

Dust Bin, have been reason for humour from age old times. There have been funny scenarios enacted in movies, dramas, stories, showing the incidents around searching for material in the Dust Bins. The scene from the movie Pushpak where an individual finds a neatly covered package in the Dust Bin, and ends up in a mental asylum is part of the folklore in India.

Dust bin is a symbol of equality, in this god-forbidden world of in-equalities. This is the only place, which can hold gold, paper, religious texts, non-religious texts, money, dust, etc. etc. without worrying about the perceived value of the material. It brings equality to all matter, by segregating the perceived false notions of material from truth.

Next time, when you see a Dust Bin do not get disgusted by it, instead remember the values offered by it and say a small prayer to God.

by Madhukar Hebbar

6 comments:

Ananda Teertha said...

kasad dabba
in short we also call people by this name, dabba nana maga. in the sense waste nana maga.

Critic said...

never thought one could write such a good article on dust bin. By the way, have you ever thouhght why it is called "Dust bin" and not waste basket or waste box or usless matter collection box?
Dust does not necessarily mean waste.

VidyaShankar Harapanahalli said...

Nice Essay Hebbar. It proves that if you have skill you make essay out of anything and everything.

Great going indeed!

Maverick said...

The science of collecting waste and its disposal- Garbology, a new booming field in research can be directly attributed to dustbin then!!... :))) ...

Madhukar Hebbar said...

thanks for your comments guys.

Gulmohar said...

Hebbav,
Logic inundation!
Anyways, kasadinda rasa! So no waste as such.

Pathi,
I believe, the term "dust bin" is a strong Indian dialect..the correct term would be "trash can"