10th December 2014
Ghaziabad
After
one long semester of being a professor, I am finally home for vacations, yet I realize,
this might be the longest period in 3 years that I would be living at my home.
The December chills setting in, and the fresh aroma of filter coffee made by
mother, this is what heaven feels like in all its beauty.
I
realized how small and inanimate things do play an important role in our lives.
I went upstairs into my room, and saw the discarded old file cabinet, handed
over to me by dad who no longer needed it in his office. I looked at the room
closely ….have some things changed ? I guess not.
The
room , which has witnessed my aspirations and frustrations, and my sleepless
and drunken nights , trying hard to make a good design submission, the room has
seen my fights, has seen me cry in times of despair, yet it is the only thing
which has remained silent all this time. I happened to see my dusty old
drawings, old textbooks, and old notes which appear to be remarkably fresh,
since 2005, when I started my architecture course.
Once
filled with so many aspirations and dreams , it seems that the room has
attained a certain state of calmness, just like me. It has seen me grow as a
person from 2003 , when I was 16 to now, when I am 27.There were times when I would
just sit on the terrace in front of it, wondering what to do next. And whether
to go for Masters is a good choice or not. Yet today, when I realize, for me,
it was the den from which the roars of my dreams originated.
It’s
true that I miss home, miss being in my room all night long..staying awake.
Though I still stay awake at nights, the reasons are arguably different now. So
many persons who have been a part of this den are now loved and lost, and might
never come back again.
Once
painted and adorned with all my arts and graffiti, the walls of this are now a
bare white or bluish, maybe mocking at how some things never grow old as humans
do. The stained glass art, which I had drawn at the window, is faint, and has
become lighter by the weather and the sun and rains.
The
past three years have been wonderful, with travelling to numerous destinations,
and numerous places. Roorkee, Auroville, Pondicherry, Germany and now
Karnataka. Yet, what I miss the most is my colorful den, where a piece of my
heart has attached itself to the dust on my old drawings and the yellowish
tinge of the old papers.
Maybe
its not the right time to be philosophical, but the urge to write was
persuading me again and again, to revisit my old self, who is now perhaps
hidden forever in that file cabinet, never to be revealed….!! It almost seems
like the room is echoing Sylvia Plath’s lines to me:
“I
am silver and exact, I have no preconceptions.
Whatever
I see, I swallow immediately
Unmisted
by love or dislike.
I
am not cruel, only truthful”
Is
this what being 27 and a grown up adult should feel like ?
