A Defective Piece

It was marked 60% off when I saw it on the stands all alone, lying tilted and unnoticed. I picked it up and calculated the discount, and the cost came  ₹10.

I thought what could be better than ten rupees? It wasn't defected, as we now say, it has a modified and more respectful term- being differently-abled. If not for coffee, then I'll put it to some other purpose I thought.

I brought it home and kept my usually scattered pens in it. With two highlighters, a pair of scissors, a few blue pens, perhaps a black pen too, one pencil, two Parkers (of which one remains), and a pendrive it was assigned to tame them all from scattering around the room.

It is true that a good employee gets more responsibilities, and so did it. With time more pens found themselves falling into it and getting tamed.

Perhaps it had even lost hopes of getting sold at a whooping 60% discount, and today it holds in it pens of all inks. Pens that evaluate marksheets in the University, pens that sometimes compose poems, pens that write thoughts on the wall beside me, pens that cost more than half-a-thousand bucks.

So happy would it be, that it accidently met those scratches and was labelled as defective, else it would have been lying in some dirty kitchen sink twice a day amongst all sorts of stained utensils. Had it not been defective, it would have been burning itself everytime its owner poured it with tea or coffee.

Because it was deffective, it saves itself from those hot pours and the company of stained utensils and dirty kitchen sink. Today it tames two highlighters- which make things bold and clear. Seven red pens- that evaluate answer-sheets. Four black pens- that fill up the university award sheets. Two sketch pens- that outline bold and distinct. Three pencils- which are humble and facilitate corrections. Seven blue pens- that often scratch the pages of my diary. One Parker with a cartridge- that boasts of itself amongst all these red and blue ball pens. An eraser- that eliminates mistakes. A One Rupee coin- of the same value with which Rocket Singh bought a company. And a pair of scissors- that goes all good and bad places.

In total it homes twenty-nine things and guess what, they called it DEFECTIVE, once. I am suddenly reminded that with it I had also bought a cofee mug at half the price, which was chipped at its rim. It just went to IIT-Roorkee for the rest of its life, with my ex-room mate who qualified for his PhD there.

As it stands on the left corner of my study table, in sparkling greens it must have thanked them for labelling it defective and me for picking it up.

It is undoubtedly true that the best of us come to use only when we're put aside and are labelled as different.