“Ise nikala to kal se gaadi chalane nahin milegi !” — the words of my angry mother when I tried to remove the plastic off the seats in our family’s first car.

There is a perceived viscous charm about brand new, seal-packed things! And there is an ever better satisfaction in removing the same!

I don’t remember an incident when my parents did not obsess over keeping the plastic covers on new items intact. Be it a new radio, the new television set or the plastic on the seats of our family’s’ first car; they will shout at you and call it a Federal offence if you ever try to mutilate the puny plastic.

What is with this obsession? I have been trying to find answers to it and now to a limit where I am searching for the answers in almost everything that I see and believe! Is it to protect the item from getting damaged or is it a device to create an illusion, making us perceive things to be newer than they actually are? Whatever the reason might be, the obsession definitely intrigues me a lot!

The logical explanation drives me to the conclusion that the plastic acts as a cover and protects the item from getting damaged from dirt. Dirt! Oh I can write a whole another article just for Dirt, from the perspective of an Indian guy. So back to the point; yes, it does protect and keeps the shine and the shimmer of the product intact. But in a striking contrast, the observational logic suggests that the same plastic coating accumulates dirt and tiny particles underneath the surface and acts as a sandpaper, whenever you clean. So Should I or Should I not? Remove the cover?

Reiterating my words that I have been trying to find answers everywhere, I observed a strange resemblance while thinking about this! Where have I thought about something like this? Umm…. Oh yeah! With relationships! How could I miss that one out?

Go back to the time when you met someone new after taking ages to put back the emotional baggage you were carrying for a lost cause! Wasn’t that feeling amazing? Like the lingering smell of tea boiling for over 10 minutes on the stove or the smell of a freshly unpacked soap! The joy of things that are new is something that we crave every now and then. And once the thing starts gaining age, we make desperate efforts to make things the way they were at the beginning.

Consider the spark you have with a person in the first 6 months of dating and then slowly making conscious efforts to keep things they way they were at the beginning and then gradually noticing things have changed with time! In turn, repeating the obsession to not uncover the plastic from our television. With the aspiration to keep things as good as new, we are constantly overlooking the beauty of the journey! Try removing the plastic and accept the fact that the relationship is now vulnerable to scratches, but those scratches will mean so much later when you will look at them and do nothing but smile. Those scratches will define the path and the bonding you’ve carried together. The scratches will let you know why the thing means so much to you, and in a spot of bother when you have second thoughts, maybe those scratches will tell you why to hold on a little bit longer.

Coming back to the plastic on my television, yes! I have been looked down by my near and dear as I removed the plastic on my television the day it was installed, even before my mother ceremoniously did Tilaks to the set. A crime! Isn’t it?

But now when I am to look at my television, I see a scratch at the bottom right corner, just a few millimetres to the left and I would have broken the L.C.D. panel with a hit from the remote on the day of the Cricket World-Cup final, just when Sachin Tendulkar got out. What a shame that might have been! But with utmost thanks to my wonderful throwing skills, I failed to break it. So if I had not removed the plastic the day we bought the television, would the scratch have been there? Would I have been able to smile at the scratch and smile every-time India plays in the World Cup? Apparently not!

‘Wrapping up things’, I suggest to take the plastic off the television and the relationship once it’s reasonably old! Try not to obsess over keeping it new. Rather try to hit them with a remote to laugh about it later. It’ll do wonders eventually. Yeah you would have to be a little bit more careful, but its’ worth the effort!

P.S.: Read the warranty TnC’s before removing the plastic! I’m just saying.