A Gift

Yesterday the paperkkaarar came to buy our old newspapers, Diet Pepsi tins, magazines, empty bottles and so on. We usually call him in -- he cycles by with his cart every few days -- only after the shelves in the ironing room are bulging with stuff. Mary and Lakshmi haul more things out of Mary's room: bits of torn paper, scrap metal from valves and pipes which have been replaced, empty tins of canned corn, plastic milk sachets. The proceeds from this venture are shared among us, under a long-established system which I haven't fully figured out.

Yesterday Lakshmi was shaking the paperkkaarar's coarse burlap sack to make sure that it was empty, and this fell out:


The picture shows the actual size -- at least on my computer screen. It's a press for making sweets, or savoury snacks. I was attracted to the design inside. I said, "I'll buy this from you." The paperkkaarar said, "Go ahead, take it, no need to give anything."

So I received a gift yesterday. It fell from a sack. It is worth nothing, even to the paperkkaarar. And I'm ridiculously pleased with it.