I'm sorry, but this is an intensely private post.
We will be moving house shortly (next month, hopefully!) and today it got me thinking....
I live in a world of one, a world of me. I love the peaceful Sunday when you have no plans and no pressure of studies weighing you down. You're pretty much free to spend it as you want. Today was just such a Sunday.
And it is on days like today that I seem to rediscover the fact that I live in world of one. My chhaat forms that entire world. I live in a rather old-fashioned house with a nice exclusive chhaat which is part of the apartment. That is, the kitchen, dining room and a small hole in the wall (formerly a bharar ghor, now my own study), are all situated on the chhaat.
My chhaat is my Gondor. So many little idle everyday memories are linked to my chhaat, that when the time comes, I know it's going to be hard to leave. My chhaat is a boundary. Two different worlds exist on either side of its borders. When I am on my chhaat, I can
hear the sounds of traffic, of modern everyday life, grinding along on the streets. If I lean over the parapet, on the side of Rashbehari Avenue, I am confronted with the image of modernity, of life on the move, the life which swallows you up as you step outside. But on the chaat, I am only confronted with the
sight of peace. From my chhaat, I can see an uncluttered vista of the city skyline. The sky actually does form a never-ending dome above my head. And one of my most favouritest of past-times is to sit on the step outside my room, and quietly watch the chils circling overhead. I am treated to the most magnificent shows of aerobatic manoeuvrability and control. This has funnily always reminded me of a line in
Pather Panchali, where Apu watches a chil circling slowly above an
aswathha gachh until it disappears. I so relate to
that image of tranquility!
My chaat is my Gondor. It's one of the old kind of chaats where the parapet is fashioned like old fortress walls. There actually are short stumpy towers at intervals along it. And facing my chhaat, there is a communications tower on top of a building where every evening a glowing red eye is turned on. I call it the Eye of Sauron. Since earliest childhood, this little imaginary device has turned my chhaat into a paradise, a castle. I still believe in it to this day.
The sun shows its various moods on my chhaat. I have seen glorious sunsets, with the sun sinking like a blazing ball of fire. I have also seen mellow sunsets colouring the ice-cream clouds a pink, a purple, an orange. I have seen rich tangible sunsets, when my neighbour's window panes become sheets of molten gold with the rich light. I have willingly scorched myself in the fiery arms of summer, and basked lazily on quilts laid out to warm in the balmy sweet warmth of the winter sunshine. I have seen the moon about to drop clean out of the sky, and its dusky face, hidden in a veil of clouds embraced by a lunar rainbow. I have seen it when its the colour of honey, glowing red like the eye of a drunken wolf. And the afternoons are the best times of all, because below the incessant noise of rushing traffic, there is a drowsy silence and I feel like I'm the only soul awake in the neighbourhood.
And the books that I've read on this chhaat! I think my ardent fascination for fantasy arose from the fact that my chhaat just departs such an unique flavour to them. It is a screen to receive the images my imagination portrays onto it. I have read Star Wars on days of rain. I have read Robert Jordan at the heights of blazing summer. I have read Jonathan Livingston Seagull under the very skies of perfection.I have travelled with Frodo out of the Shire in perfect spring; and as Saphira rose with Eragon on her back, dusk has fallen on me on my chhaat. Even now, I associate certain atmospheres with certain stories.
My chhaat has been my childhood stadium. I've played cricket, football, tennis, badminton on my chhaat losing n number of balls, shuttlecocks and other toys. I have had several hundred sword-fights, lightsabre duels and rapiered encounters on my chhaat, a bhanga antenna-r rod serving me faithfully everytime. I have rushed out from whatever I was doing, attracted by the drone of a low-flying aircraft. I have eaten apples and stolen begun bhaja from the kitchen when no one was looking. I have followed lines of ants leading away from the carcass of a cockroach, away by the gutter, behind the pillar, up the wall and into a hidden crack. And then? Never have I found out what lay on the other side of their secret tunnel.
I have had romantic telephone conversations; revealed scary details about how I got drunk to a terrified friend; gossipped away to glory and craned my neck to gaze up at the diamond pricks on a clear night when I thought the sky could not possibly be more beautiful. I have danced in the rain and caught colds from the chill. I have wept and laughed and poured out my secrets to nobody in particular on my chhaat.
Sigh.
Indeed it will be hard to leave. My creative and imaginative spirit is inextricably linked with my chhaat. All my creative inspiration has been derived from this one source. But leave I must, one day. That day I will find a new world of one. Away from my Gondor, away from my skies and my chils, away from my one step beneath my room. It will be hard but I will harden my heart. This place, for me, can never be replaced. The best I can do is move on. I will find a new planet. Someday.
