The Many Meanings of ‘Basket’ in My Life

Baskets may evoke Diwali or the fear of a covered basket containing a severed head.  It conceals secrets and failed innovations. Soumya tells us how the basket’s meanings intrigue – exclusively for Different Truths.

One of the first swear words I learned as a child was ‘Bloody Basket’. I didn’t get what it meant and later realised that the word probably wasn’t Basket but some homophone of it.

I remember with joy the Diwali baskets that people exchanged, containing fruits, dry fruits, sweets, chocolates, and crackers, the last two being of interest to me, and the coloured cellophane paper that everything was wrapped in.

In those days, the shopping came home in a basket, carried by someone called a jhanka muthe, whose job was to follow the gentleman around in the market while he chose his wares and deliver them home. It would usually have various greens peeking out and the head or tail of a large fish hanging outside the basket.

But a covered basket is a scary thing. It contains a severed head in all historical fiction and fantasy and quite often in history itself. And in our childhood, I often found them to have snakes, which the friendly neighbourhood snake charmer showed us in exchange for some coins.

I have often been called a basket case, and I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I gathered that it wasn’t complimentary. It meant that I was considered fit for the wastebasket, being useless.

But the wastebasket is such an exciting thing. It is the depository of failed creativity, passionate letters the writers didn’t have the nerve to send, or the recipients weren’t impressed by little notes that spoke volumes or mundane shopping lists and bills that tell an intimate story and reveal secrets.

Detectives and spies get so much information and solve mysteries by analysing waste baskets, not only in fiction but in real life as well. Pakistan’s nuclear plans were revealed to the world by a brilliant Indian agent who went through the wastebaskets of the hairdressers, plumbers, and contractors near military establishments.

Then there’s scoring a basket, which made the tall, athletic guys heroes among the girls, and a feat I couldn’t achieve, being a bespectacled nerd who could only cheer from the sidelines. For me, that was a basket too far.

Recently there was another basket I couldn’t obtain, the famous jhuri doi, or curd in a basket of Murshidabad. It’s some form of hung curd, but the shops we tried said it’s over and will come next week, and we must order vast quantities in advance.

So, we returned from Murshidabad without having tasted this but with the promise of another beautiful basket, one filled with their delectable mangoes.

I think that puts the basket on my meandering mind, and the judge/editor might chuck it in her/his basket.

Picture design by Anumita Roy