During the period we dated my husband and I discovered that we were drawn into a relationship because of the things we had in common – cars, night outs, books, food – you name it. Polarity was not our forte.

In exactly 9 months after marriage we realized that our relationship was built on accommodating each others extremely opposite traits – but the spark in the marriage continued.

He liked all things on paper, I liked a thumb drive. He saved and watched his bank balance grow and I jettisoned and depleted mine. He considered every corner in the house the perfect place to pile things; I liked corners ornately decorated.

On hostile days, I would “pack rat” his things and he would stonily remove them and find another corner for it – like the penthouse. One day I listed the things he collected and handed it to him: on it was written – airlines tickets from 20 years, socks with holes, old coins, postage stamps, brochures from exhibitions, key chains, newspapers, bank statements, shirt buttons, electrical sockets, copper taps, television cables, dead people’s visiting cards – Almost everything that interested him was saved up.

In 2007 when I left our home in India to restart our lives in the UAE, I put all his collectors’ item in a store n lock cabinet. Years of treasure was lovingly packed into large carton boxes. I believed then that the collection would never travel to a corner. They were clearly out of sight.

A collectors item

Forgotten treasure

Since the last few months my husband while in India rummaged through his proud collection. And guess what he found – a gas regulator that I was looking for since fifteen years. Picture my feelings when I read his email. It was truly anticlimactic.  I had a few cliff hangar moments.

Call it pop psychology; but I made him promise never to clear his father’s house where three generations of collectors collected.