I got up this morning, proceeded to brush and shave and then headed for a cup of freshly brewed filter coffee. I stirred half a spoon of sugar into wonderful hot beverage leisurely. As I walked towards the balcony with my cup, I noticed that my niece was sitting with a saree spread out on the table. She was stitching the edges with a needle and thread. When the thread ran out, she threaded the needle, peering intently into its tiny eye. Then she carefully cut the exact length with a cute pair of scissors and then placed in a small sewing box. The aroma and the kick of caffeine woke me up, but it was this brief ten-minute scene of daily commonplace activities that truly set my mind wandering.
The ubiquitous, ordinary, daily use objects without which we may not be able to live life, which we take for granted and thus go unnoticed in our everyday race of life. What was the first time that a human being found a reason to use this? How did it come about? Why did she call it what she calls it today?
I also started seeing some objects which were worthless on their own but indispensable when their partner was present - these were the Duos, born of necessity. And at the same time I also observed other objects, which enhance life experiences without being essential - born of convenience.
The more I thought about it, more sprouted various ideas of what all to include - etymology, imaginary stories, the origin, culture, and even human psychology and of course the flow of the object through history. And then it opened up not just surprising doors of history into the past but also into the imagination leap humans had to make, to create them. That moment of invention. That aha instant!!!!
Using my friend ChatGPT to support me in my research I started piecing together my ideas. What should I call it - History of Everyday Life or Material Culture Studies or just Invention History. After a lot of thought, what I plan to share in this blog series is called Origins of the Ordinary.
I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I did compiling it. I would love to hear your own versions of imagination, when our ancestor created these timeless inventions.
Here are the links to each one of them. They are stand-alone articles and can be read as per your interests or you could read them in a sequence of their listing
Stirring Stories
You are right buddy, most of these daily mundane activities we do are done at a SPINAL LEVEL without giving a thought to the evolution of the process. To some extent such introspection happens during the early mornings, isn't it ???
ReplyDeletePrasanna