My mother throws away almost nothing. In the room upstairs she kept the thread reels we used to fly paper-kites with, my blue table lamp that got me a national scholarship and a plastic hen that once belonged on a battery operated game I got for my sixth birthday. After my brother and I left home post high school, to attend college and then to find jobs she stored many of our belongings in a cupboard, in case we returned and might need something. That was two decades back.