Fridge magnets, they say, are the most common souvenirs picked up by travellers.
While our well-travelled friends shop for ceramic plates, printed tiles, masks or table linen at each place they visit or just go for the speciality of the region, we look at the space available in our suitcases and the notes available in our wallets and opt for fridge magnets.
Yes, they are commonplace, ordinary, they don’t announce that we have good taste or artistic leanings — but when one is on a budget and in a hurry, they are the easiest things to acquire.
And, while they remind us in innovative and imaginative ways where we had been and what we had seen, their bright colours help to make our fridge a little more attractive. Until we fixed those magnets on it, the dull grey or the plain white ensured that it faded into the background and failed to tell everyone what an important part of the household it was.
From time to time, we read that fridge magnets are not as innocuous as we think they are. They could affect those with pacemakers, they may have some effect on the working of the fridge itself and its contents, the paints used on them are dangerous for children who may be beguiled into believing they are toys and spend too much time playing with them and even from time to time chew on them in a fit of distraction, and so on.
Naturally, when I read all those snippets, I can’t decide whether to believe in all the negatives about those charming little drops of colour we pick up from here and there.
A couple of times in the past few years, I have told myself that I should just stick them all onto a large magnetic board like a kind of collage and hang it up in the living room.
So, I go to the fridge and strip it of those souvenirs and line them up and out of idle curiosity I count the magnets and realise that they number more than all the countries of the world. Since I have not visited even a quarter of these countries, obviously I have not collected magnets in the ratio of one magnet to one country, so I proceed to the next task of sorting them out according to the places they represent.
Slowly, it becomes clear to me that there are some places that, deep down, I enjoyed more than others because I have dozens of magnets from there. Did I really need representations of Athena, Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Apollo and the Parthenon from so many different angles when we visited Greece? And oh, didn’t we go overboard and bring back handfuls of magnets from Scotland and Italy and Turkey ...
Unbidden, as I stand there and stare at the profusion of colour, scenes from each place flash into my mind and memories come pouring in: Dashing around the Acropolis while straining my ears to hear what the guide said about each stone and each statue that once stood there; the exact spot on the bridge in Istanbul where we crossed over from Europe to Asia and back again ... and so much more.
I know that when we returned from each place we visited, we gave several magnets away, but the evidence in front of me proves that we also clung to many. Perhaps too many.
But, as I rearrange them on the fridge, some in little clusters and some in soldierly lines, I relive the thrills of our travels and I know that I cannot discard any — irrespective of what I read.
Apparently, this version of magnet therapy buoys my spirits and keeps me going until the next venture into the unknown. Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
