My room, my home shares many secrets of mine, a place that is witness to both happy and sad days in Chennai. I share the place with two others. A big room, with its three beds lying side by side, gives it a dormitory look. With the paint peeling off its wall like a tree shedding leaves in autumn and the floor with permanent stains as if the signatures of its previous dwellers, it still appeals to me. The yellow paint though dull and lifeless does give it a serious look. It seems it had been waiting for ages to have colors splashed on it. Still it stands strong and still. The door with an ethnic ornamental handle seems to confirm the never-ending wait of the room. Waiting for joy, smiles and celebrations but day after day that room is left alone and is remembered only when, I’m too tired to go anywhere else and need a place to sleep. How does it feel to be unwanted...? Maybe if rooms could feel the way we do, my room would have been the most depressed one. But then, it’s just a room. A place we go to end the day.
My room’s level is lower than the lobby’s. One needs to take a step down to get into the room. Looking left at the three steel cupboards, standing next to each other, vaguely reminds me of an industrial era aptly described in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. The sight of steel laid ahead goes so well with my imagination of period that had more metal and fewer people. However, Sai Baba ji’s picture on my roommate’s cupboard comes out like a ray of light in this darkness of a bygone era. The other door on the left wall of our room leads to the washroom, which is all green, starting from tiles to toiletries, flooring and everything. Green had never been my favorite. I always preferred pink. The blurred mirror over the washbasin gives me a dull look. Compounding that, the uneven leveling of the floor has made me fall down twice. I never liked this bathroom much but home it is for me.
My room is spacious but littered with all of our stuff. Yet it has a sense of emptiness about it. Ironically, even the big window on the opposite wall gives a sense of confinement. It opens to the caretaker’s house and makes it impossible to gaze outside, at the world. The rusty net on the window not only prevent mosquitoes from getting into the room, but also imaginations wandering into space. Even sunlight and fresh air find it hard to cross this manmade barrier.
The wall that stretches across the right side of the room, with nothing on it, not even a picture, reflects the blankness of life. However, some funny posters put up by me and my roommates have tried to fill the void. Having a Shrek-2 poster and another one saying, ‘Deadlines amuse me’ gives the room some life. After all the best cure for blankness in life is humor.
My room’s level is lower than the lobby’s. One needs to take a step down to get into the room. Looking left at the three steel cupboards, standing next to each other, vaguely reminds me of an industrial era aptly described in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. The sight of steel laid ahead goes so well with my imagination of period that had more metal and fewer people. However, Sai Baba ji’s picture on my roommate’s cupboard comes out like a ray of light in this darkness of a bygone era. The other door on the left wall of our room leads to the washroom, which is all green, starting from tiles to toiletries, flooring and everything. Green had never been my favorite. I always preferred pink. The blurred mirror over the washbasin gives me a dull look. Compounding that, the uneven leveling of the floor has made me fall down twice. I never liked this bathroom much but home it is for me.
My room is spacious but littered with all of our stuff. Yet it has a sense of emptiness about it. Ironically, even the big window on the opposite wall gives a sense of confinement. It opens to the caretaker’s house and makes it impossible to gaze outside, at the world. The rusty net on the window not only prevent mosquitoes from getting into the room, but also imaginations wandering into space. Even sunlight and fresh air find it hard to cross this manmade barrier.
The wall that stretches across the right side of the room, with nothing on it, not even a picture, reflects the blankness of life. However, some funny posters put up by me and my roommates have tried to fill the void. Having a Shrek-2 poster and another one saying, ‘Deadlines amuse me’ gives the room some life. After all the best cure for blankness in life is humor.
1 comment:
i feel you are searching for something in that room
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