“Crimson melancholy” is how the late essayist T. G. Vaidyanathan described his anguish at the loss of his first umbrella in a quaint piece in The Hindu, that was headlined “Umbrella Days” (Dec.12, 1993). As I myself have since found out first-hand, the loss of an umbrella is no small loss for an ordinary man. Some of my acquaintances still remember how quite beside myself I was for many days after losing my first umbrella, inquiring frantically at every place I might have left it – the grocer’s, the barber’s, the butcher’s, the cobbler’s, friends’ and neighbours’ – seeking that dear collapsible companion I had so indifferently and carelessly treated. But it was truly gone.
Well, its hand-crafted rosewood crook handle could’ve tempted anyone. TGV would’ve readily empathised: how many can still appreciate the attachment a man acquires for his umbrella? And this attachment only grows. When did you, dear reader, buy your own umbrella, or found it hard to ignore? Was it around middle age? And how many have you lost?
For women
Do women feel the loss of their umbrellas as much as men do theirs? I wonder. This bond is mannish and definitive of middle age. “It’s one of those momentous decisions made,” TGV observes, “usually, in early middle age to keep the rain out. It means saying good-bye to one’s youth….”
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The loss of an umbrella may mean less or nothing at all for most women; they have no “advent of umbrella days” since they begin using it much earlier than us men; it signifies no visible transition from youth to middle age. I remember how eagerly my sister and her friends sought to own ‘folding’ umbrellas at the threshold of college. Using it as a mere tool, women fail to appreciate the bond. (I shudder at the thought of being in the company of such women who’re cold to the man-umbrella bond or similar other mannish bonds.) And the less said of the man who does not miss his lost umbrella, the better.
I’ve lost at least four umbrellas since my first, even mulling over the feasibility of a raincoat as a better option. But I was dissuaded by my recollection of Gene Hackman’s character in The Conversation (1974), continually wrapped in a translucent raincoat even when it wasn’t raining, apparently to project the character’s agoraphobia. Besides, a middle-ager must enjoy the rain, getting partially wet under an umbrella and not staying mostly dry in a raincoat.
These days almost everything is easily replaceable, umbrellas included. Perhaps the umbrella-makers were the first to incorporate synthetic materials, but that also diminished their value. Once an investment for the average citizen that lasted almost a lifetime, they’ve now become disposable. And to think of that ultimate insult to the humble contraption: the cocktail umbrella.
There are some for whom the umbrella is clearly unfit; children and teenagers are the first that come to mind. Young people think that loving the rain means one should get drenched. Unlike older people, they love the rain from “inside it”. Umbrella days signal the transition to enjoying it from the “outside”.
The umbrella etiquette
There are adults who are completely unfit for an umbrella: even after nearly a century many still lack basic umbrella etiquette. This is also true with many modern conveniences: we honk loudly and needlessly, holler into our mobile phones, dawdle inside ATMs, among many other things that makes one wonder if we’ll ever stop being boorish. The way many use umbrellas sometimes makes me wish lightning strikes them: they will not be the first to raise their umbrellas for fellow pedestrians, they suddenly and carelessly expand their umbrellas, they judder wet umbrellas after entering a café or bus-stop…. Will these be absent in our smart cities?
I now carry a really cheap model, having learnt, as TGV did in his youth, “the evanescence of all earthly joys and the imminence of peril” after the loss of his first umbrella during a commute.
O, how he bemoans its loss in the essay! Having used and lost a variety of umbrellas, I now tuck a foldable one in my bag, opening it only to stay dry. I’ve no reason to think this “spring action” piece will fail to spring into action for several more umbrella days.
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