The Yellow Bag

It is 7.00 p.m. and my thoughts are already on tomorrow’s things to do list. I click in exasperation, as I realize that I need to dash to the supermarket for some essential supplies.

I quickly pick up my wallet, take my cloth shopping bag and rush out of the house. This cloth bag has become an integral part of every shopping expedition. Easy to carry, and eco-friendly too!

During my childhood, most shops – especially garment and jewellery shops packed the garments and jewels – that customers bought – in bright yellow bags that had the name of the shop printed in bright red letters on both sides of the bag.

One simply couldn’t miss these bright yellow bags. They were made of cloth and were well-suited for heavy-duty wear and tear. My mom carefully preserved these bags, and used them to send stuff across to her friends, or to go shopping with.

But my siblings and I, and most other teens I presume, were mortified to be seen carrying these bags. They were not ‘in’, they were loud and attracted attention. They did not go with the cool, smart teen images we had of ourselves; and we weren’t going to go anywhere with a bright yellow bag accompanying us and thereby reduce our cool quotient!

We tried reasoning with our mom, when she argued with us that it was just a cloth bag, a very useful one at that, and that there was nothing wrong in using it.

The yellow bag or manja pai as we called it was ubiquitous at home, in shops and on the streets – flashes of yellow and red, faithfully carrying money, vegetables, books, and everything else that people needed to carry on with their everyday lives.

We, on the other hand, wanted plastic bags, and paper bags…or trendy looking bags in lovely shades that suited our cool personas.

And then, time flew by – and our streets and shops were flooded with plastic bags – light to carry and easy to use – or so we thought.

And slowly, the yellow bags faded away.

Plastics took over our lives, and with time, lots of plastic bags were found in the bellies of fish and other sea creatures, plastic bottles floated in the sea, plastics were everywhere!

With the passage of time, awareness came to people.

And now, cloth bags are back. And I suddenly feel nostalgic for those yellow bags, and for those simpler times, when our planet was greener, where we were probably helping the planet, one yellow bag at a time.

Advertisement