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Are your travel souvenirs as unusual as these?

Gone are the days of collecting post-cards and stamps, four travellers talk to Avril-Ann Braganza about their souvenir collections

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A newsworthy collection
She could probably give her raddiwala a run for his money. 26-year-old Adelle Almeida has a collection of newspapers from Thailand, Cambodia, Greece, Turkey, Saudi Arablia, Sri Lanka, UK and different parts of China. It's not cut-outs of interesting articles that she preserves, but the entire newspaper. The story begins in 2009, after her graduation. “Being a student of Political Science, I read a lot of newspapers and always picked one up from the hotel whenever I travelled. I liked to see what the locals of those countries were reading,” she explains. It does not have to be a leading national (or international) newspaper, but usually it is. Before choosing a newspaper, she usually glances through the content on the first page to decide. Her collection includes newspapers like The Phnom Penh Post, Viêt Nam News, China Daily, Bangkok Post, South China Morning Post Hong Kong, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, To Vima (from Greece). What does she do with them after reading it? She keeps them safe in her cupboard, so that whenever she wants to read it, it's always there. 

Finding art in everything


While most people have their eyes set on beautiful monuments while travelling, Anila Cherian's eyes are glued to the ground, whenever she's on holiday. What's so interesting? She's looking for feathers, flowers and butterfly wings to add to her collection. “I started my collection when I was 14 years old; we went to Lal Bagh in Bangalore and I found butterflies. When I googled them later, I learnt they were parantica agleoides. Since then I had an eye open for any wings on the ground. Sometimes I find the butterfly intact and pick up the whole butterfly, while at other times I find only a wing. Often I see beautiful butterflies and just wish that when they die, they'd die in front of me,” she says. But it was only recently that she organised her collection in an album and includes the hypolimnas bolina, graphium sarpedon, dysphania palmyra, parantica agleoides and papilio polytes butterflies. 

Of her entire collection her prized piece is the porcupine quill from Tiruvanamalai in Tamil Nadu, which she found six months ago, when she travelled to the south to meet an architect working with mud. Her collection includes feathers and butterflies from different places. “I've picked up most of the feathers from in and around Kerala, when I went on nature trails and treks. I've got a few from the north—Manali and Dharamsala,” shares the 23-year-old, who always looks up the colours of the butterflies on Google, before recording it in her album. Her unusual hobby has got her interested in the life cycle of butterflies and their varieties. “If I wanted more wings, I needed to know where the butterflies are common and at what time of the year. So I started reading up more about them,” she states. “As a child, Anila has always been fascinated by random things. She finds art in everything—be it in sea shells or pebbles. Her collections are weird, but so is she,” laughs her older sister Asha Cherian. 

Every Bottle has a Story


Rahela Khorakiwala gives new meaning to the term 'water baby'. 72 countries, 852 samples of water. You read right, WATER! Her collection started out in 1997, when she travelled to Israel. As her teacher collected water from River Jordan, the place where Jesus was baptised, so did she in a cola bottle. “When we went to the Dead Sea next, I collected some water from there as well,” she tells us. 17 years later, Antartica, Afghanistan, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Finland, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia and  Slovenia, are just a handful of the places that she has water samples from. 

“I've learnt a lot from my collection,” shares Rahela. “I usually talk to locals and find out the name of the water body. If you ever try rafting at Rishikesh, at one point you cannot hear the gushing of the Ganga. Legend goes that Laxman, who was considered to be short tempered, was sitting in penance at this spot. Even the river did not want to anger him as it flowed past and so it went silent. A friend, who sent me water from here shared this story and a few years ago when I went rafting at Rishikesh, I shared the story with my raft-mates. Even our main rafter, who has been in this profession for eight years did not know the story”.

What started as a not-so-serious collection in the beginning, is now her life, claims the 30  year old, who is pursuing a PhD in Law from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. “Ponds, rivers, lakes, the ocean...anything will do as long as it's from a natural water source,” Rahela informs. At first, not all locals believe she collects water. Once she shows them pictures of her collection on her phone, they're always eager to help. Back home, she maintains an Excel spreadsheet with all the data. While earlier she would collect the water in any bottle she could find—shampoo bottles from hotels, plastic cola bottles—she has now bought 1,000 bottles in bulk. Every bottle has a story; the bottles have a label with the name of the water body, the area, city, state, country, date and the person who has collected it for her. Yes, she's got friends and relatives posting water to her from different parts of the globe; she has received more than 100 samples in a year. Would you be surprised if we tell you that there was more to her collection, but she gave away 50 samples to the Marine Museum?

Memories etched in stone


Instead of keeping his bag light when setting out on treks and hikes, Floyd Almeida packs empty boxes to collect flowers, dried fruits, vegetables and shells. He loads his bags with stones that he finds along the trail. “Around 10 years ago, when we were on a trek to Matheran, I found some pretty dried flowers; that's when I started collecting them. I also started picking up coloured stones and shells from beaches. The biggest challenge is to take care of these collections while trekking, as everything is just dumped in the bag. Sometimes I even store my goodies in an empty water bottle,” Floyd shares. With natural memories from Lonavala, Khandala, Alibaug, Tarkarli, Matheran, Mahableshwar, as well as from Kerala and Goa, Floyd has even picked a few stones that may be worth quite a bit (although he didn't know it at that time), according to his Geologist friend.

Each flower is given a label with the name of the place and the date, which is then stored in a jar. “I particularly remember a time when I picked up a dry seed, which was the size of a nutmeg and it began growing inside the jar. I had to actually then separate the others from the growing creeper and plant the seed. Stones, on the other hand, are slightly difficult to tag, so I don't tag all of them”. Each collection has a separate jar and the jars displayed in the hall often becomes a topic of discussion. While some think it's a good hobby, others think he should use them for creative purposes like making cards. And to his family it's additional junk, when there's already scant place. But for Floyd, they hold memories of his travels.. 

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