Can opener

Somebody presented me with a canned tin of sardines and also a can of tuna. I relish these two fish as a sandwich spread. But to spread on the bread, I discovered, you have to get at them. The fish, I mean, that's sealed tight inside.

So I began to look for a can opener. I knew we had it somewhere among the spoons and ladles, and forks and knives and all the jumble of cutlery that one accumulates over the years and stuffs them all inside the drawer of the kitchen cupboard. I was sure we had a can opener somewhere in that jungle. But try as hard as I might, I just couldn't seem to be able to locate it. My missus was not much help either, whom I had naturally to turn to in this moment of crisis.

After two days of sporadic searches and raids into all the corners and crevices of the kitchen and pantry the truth finally dawned on me that we didn't really have one. And all this time we never even needed to have one. I wasn't too surprised at that knowing my wife's intense dislike for anything tinned or canned or any food that's not fresh. So it wasn't really surprising that we didn't have a can opener in our house. And even if we had one in the past, nobody knew where it was, or what had happened to it as this item has never been in use. Now suddenly, when I got an unexpected gift of these two canned fish items the problem struck home. There they sat on the pantry shelf, the two cans, grinning wickedly at my plight. The cans knew that without an opener I just wouldn't able to gain access to their insides.

I was now confronted with the question of where to get a can opener. Do you go to a hardware store or or an expensive shopping mall, or try your luck at the hundreds of stalls on the pavements of Gariahat with the hawkers selling their myriad wares on the pavements? I decided to ask one of my knowledgeable friends, who lives alone and seems to thrive well doing it. So last night I paid him a little visit and popped this question to him: where does one go looking for a can opener. The question seemed to shake him up. My friend, who was such a pundit, in surviving alone in a hostile world, went into a deep meditation. Upon emerging from his , what seemed to me to be a small nap, his pontifical opinion was as he had obtained his can opener from Germany, a gift from his wife there, he was equally clueless as to which shops I should be visiting to look for a can opener. So much for a friend's guidance.

This afternoon I decided to tackle the problem myself. Alone and without anybody's help, assistance, or guidance. I marched into the basement shops at Gariahat Market, a one and a half minute's walk from my house. I walked up to the first shop, which was a shop selling stationery items, clearly not a place that would be carrying a can opener. When I asked the guy sitting in that shop where I coud get a can opener he looked at me as if I had come from Mars. Then I explained what I needed that item for. Oh, he exclaimed, all smiles now, saying what I needed was a "tin cutter". He pointed to the stairs and told me to go up one floor and find a shop selling stainless steel pots and pans. It was there that I would get the "tin cutter" I was looking for. And that is precisely what I did. As I climbed up one floor, I came upon this stainless steel pots and pans shop facing me. I walked up smartly to the shop-keeper and said I was looking for a "tin cutter". Immediately he produced three or four different varieties of can openers. I picked one up and made the purchase and walked back home.

Looking for a can opener for me has been an eye opener. A valueable lesson learnt that one must rely on one's own judgment and decision and act on it instead of asking one and sundry and get nowhere.