I was looking out of the 10th floor of a high rise building. This action constituted my 'break' from work. That too a recommended break. My doc asked me to look at "a green patch of land" every hour or so. Well, not a very difficult thing to do, I presumed. Till I actually started looking for that elusive patch of greenery around my office.
I realised that I was enveloped by high rise structures or upcoming ones in every direction. Startlingly though, there was no building right next to ours. There was a discarded doll's house; whose lid had blown off.
Surreal as it may sound, my bird's eye view rested on a doll's house in the middle of a corporate jungle.
I have always been fascinated by doll's houses. I suspect the fascination arises from not having played with one. Doll's houses were under those category of toys that were part of the nurseries of kids in Enid Blyton books as far as my childhood pals and I were concerned. And the first time I saw a three dimensional one was, during my teens, in a Bollywood movie; where, ironically, it was used as a symbol of a slow erosion of childhood.
One of my fantasies, as a child, was to take off the lid of a doll's house and look down into it. Yes, children have incredibly high egos; dreams of godhood!
On this particular 'break', I saw this long-forgotten fantasy come true. There it was, a rather carefully built doll's house. Unlike a typical one though, there was a careful structure but almost no furniture. There was just broken down furniture, discarded clothes, outgrown toys and all those boxes and paper that a thrifty homemaker collects to be recycled as emergency packing material. I presume, when the ex-residents of this house left, their burdens were too heavy for thrift, planning and hoarding.
There, in the middle of a room, I saw a huge rangoli. Painstakingly and skillfully painted by some family member. As soon as I saw that rangoli, my brain stopped registering other details. I cannot recollect, for instance, if the walls were semi-destroyed or if the windows had shutters or not. The rangoli jarred me out of my cosy nook, where I was fulfilling my childhood fantasy. It flung me into a sudden empathy towards the erstwhile residents of that house. People who abandonded the familiarity and comfort of their home due to 'development'.
I cannot bring myself to take a 'break' now. For fear of the story the next 'green-patch-of-land' might tell me
PS: It is Ground Zero now, at the 'doll's house'. When I was hiding in my cubicle, the house was levelled down. I might find my 'green-patch-of-land', come rains. If the cranes don't get there before the rains.
I realised that I was enveloped by high rise structures or upcoming ones in every direction. Startlingly though, there was no building right next to ours. There was a discarded doll's house; whose lid had blown off.
Surreal as it may sound, my bird's eye view rested on a doll's house in the middle of a corporate jungle.
I have always been fascinated by doll's houses. I suspect the fascination arises from not having played with one. Doll's houses were under those category of toys that were part of the nurseries of kids in Enid Blyton books as far as my childhood pals and I were concerned. And the first time I saw a three dimensional one was, during my teens, in a Bollywood movie; where, ironically, it was used as a symbol of a slow erosion of childhood.
One of my fantasies, as a child, was to take off the lid of a doll's house and look down into it. Yes, children have incredibly high egos; dreams of godhood!
On this particular 'break', I saw this long-forgotten fantasy come true. There it was, a rather carefully built doll's house. Unlike a typical one though, there was a careful structure but almost no furniture. There was just broken down furniture, discarded clothes, outgrown toys and all those boxes and paper that a thrifty homemaker collects to be recycled as emergency packing material. I presume, when the ex-residents of this house left, their burdens were too heavy for thrift, planning and hoarding.
There, in the middle of a room, I saw a huge rangoli. Painstakingly and skillfully painted by some family member. As soon as I saw that rangoli, my brain stopped registering other details. I cannot recollect, for instance, if the walls were semi-destroyed or if the windows had shutters or not. The rangoli jarred me out of my cosy nook, where I was fulfilling my childhood fantasy. It flung me into a sudden empathy towards the erstwhile residents of that house. People who abandonded the familiarity and comfort of their home due to 'development'.
I cannot bring myself to take a 'break' now. For fear of the story the next 'green-patch-of-land' might tell me
PS: It is Ground Zero now, at the 'doll's house'. When I was hiding in my cubicle, the house was levelled down. I might find my 'green-patch-of-land', come rains. If the cranes don't get there before the rains.
