Returning home on a fine spring evening I discovered something very unusual suspended by a rope in the balcony. I wanted to pull down the hideous looking thing but decided to put off until the morning. Next day, I walked towards the balcony armed with a broom and a dustpan to do away with the thing when I saw a purple sunbird approaching it with twigs in its mouth. It was then that I saw through that my balcony was soon to become home to the little bird and maybe its family.
Thereafter, every morning I’d squeeze a few minutes and stand by the balcony to observe the house under construction. It was a delightful process observing how the little thing would carry small twigs, dried leaves and sometimes even plastic to weave them into a sturdy nest. I’d drop by in the evening only to check how far it had been constructed and if it had found inmates yet. However, before the sunbird could move in, it decided to walk out of its nearly complete home and leave it for good. But I decided to not give up on hope and would wait for it every morning at the balcony.
Standing there and watching the forsaken nest of the sunbird I realized how, similar to the nest, this place I have lovingly called home for more than half a decade will soon be left behind…
…It was a rainy day of August 2011 when I moved into the apartment. As I had spent all my life in a joint family and thereafter in a college hostel crammed with three others in a room, having ‘my space’ was sacrosanct, to say the least. I was bubbling with excitement to find a place I’d finally call MINE. Despite the dampness and fungus-laden walls, I fell in love with the place in a second. In the next few months, my Sid (just in case you want to
know about my Sid) helped transform the house into a home. Some days I would return to a new sitting arrangement, on others to some DIY art projects by him. We also painted one of the walls and brought home a Swing Chair during Dhanteras that year. And the process only intensified over the years.
Most people who drop by my place tend to fall in love with it (despite the fact that I am a terrible host who does not even care to offer tea to her guests :) ) No, it is not polished or posh but some say it is the dreamy mood lighting they like, for others, it is the musty aroma the place exudes, some love the therapeutic look of the forest behind that is replete with peacocks, while for a doctor friend, it is the Bengali ethos the place echoes.
For me, it is the cocoon I sequester into and take refuge in every evening, the driving force behind my postprandial avocations, the blank sheet I scribble my thoughts into and paint my dreams on, the inspiration behind my otiosity every Sunday morning, the silent friend who bears testimony to all thick and thins of my life, the mute audience to my bathroom singing and terrible dancing, the sole witness to my eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, the solace when I am low, and above all the companion I can bare my otherwise insulated emotions to without any iota of inhibition or the fear of being judged.
Having lived alone for a larger part of the time in the last few years, I realize a house is so much more than a couple of walls and ceilings. It is a tapestry of emotion that you weave over the years you live there and one fine day, akin to the sunbird, you leave it behind in pursuit of a new nest.
Although as a traveller, I am supposed to embosom changes, there are a few I get spoony about and I haven’t been able to find a bandage to such emotional wounds. As I inch towards days of leaving my rental palace behind, my heart feels heavy.
I do not know if it is having my 'own space' I’ll miss more or the warm rooms infused with the aroma of incense sticks (yes, in a world of air diffusers, I still swear by incense sticks) I return to every evening, the walls that get a new design painted in fungus after every monsoon or the balcony that survives my art and craft projects time to time. Maybe it’s the struggle I face in bolting the obstinate door that swells after the first few monsoon showers or the terribly heated walls that make summers unbearable that I’ll miss more. I might also miss the pandemonium of my neighbours that keep me awake all night each time they party or standing on the roof and watching the skyline of Bhopal getting devoured in darkness as the sun calls it a day. And of course, there will be occasional reminders of the countless parties we had over the years, the group studies before taking A2, B1 and B2 exams, leafing through book pages while listening to my thumping heartbeat in the dead of the night, and most of all, coming to the comfort of ‘Home’ after every trip.
Someone asked me today, “How would it feel like to leave a place you have spent so many years in?” All I could answer was, “Empty”. And as it happens in life, tomorrow when I empty my space, someone else will occupy it and the mood lightings will conveniently be replaced with bright white lights. But as they say, ‘c’est la vie!’
I’d like to sign off with a few lines I remember from an old advertisement:
Har ghar chup chaap se yeh kehta hai ki andar usmein kaun rehta hai?
Rang kehte hain kiska yeh jahaan hai. Kamron mein kiski kalpana jhalakti hai?
Kaun chun chunke ise pyaar se sajaata hai? Kaun is makaan mein apna ghar basaata hai…
