Coziness. Warmth. Immunity from prosecution by Mom.
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While Dimma fretted about how small her flat must feel for her restless grandchildren, we did not share her opinion. For us, G-5/6 was just right.
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The right size for Dadubhai to open out the folding dinner table for us to have meals and bring in the 'folding khaat', our passport to adventure story nights during load-shedding; just the right size to barge out of, run into Anushua Maashi's next door and play with her Pomeranian; just the right size to go one more door over to Chakraborty Dimma's and look at (for the nth time) the brochure of miniature city Madurodam, marvelling at the brilliantly detailed little toy buildings, canals with toy ferries plying and true to real life model trains running between stations carrying the make believe citizens of this make believe world to their make believe work.
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Greater adventures lay beyond. Down the road to Pinaki Dada's house where a treasure trove of Tintin comics awaited; further out to the Mother Dairy outlet where Didi and I would contest to be the one to put the token inside the milk vending machine and watch with amazement the cowless milk delivery. Even the boundary walls of Labony, their three striped walls with peepholes patterned on it like a fort, lent a special quality to the then quiet housing estate peopled with retirees like my maternal grandparents.
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Not to forget, "Nondolal". The grandfather clock in my grandfather's house. The pendulum never ceasing to tick along ever since he made the long journey from Czechoslovakia to G-5/6, a prize for Dadubhai's extraordinary bridge playing skills. The weekly winding that Nondolal got and the unmistakable noise that his springs made were as much of a ritual as Dimma's worship of Krishno Thakur in her little wooden mandir. The pujo had special significance for us as we grandchildren would get the 'remaining' baataashaa offered to the Lord once he had had his fair share of it.
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Dadubhai and Dimma have long gone to the place, where all things, good and bad, must fade but Nondolal marches on. Now on the wall of our Ripon Street home, he marks time, like he always did, partly because it is his mechanical duty, mostly because he represents the continuity that binds us all.
-
People often talk, gloomily, of wanting to go back to the past as if it is something we left behind on the trail of time. Walking down Labony's leafy tree lined lanes, up the dimly lit stairs to the first floor and into a familiar flat, I see a flaw in that theory.
-
This much is true. Gone are my Dimma's cool-er and tetul-er aachaar in their opaque plastic jars. Gone are the almirah full of crisply pressed white kurta pyjamas that were almost like Dadubhai's post retirement uniform. The rooms, empty and dusty, as late winter afternoon sunlight filters in, look so very different in the absence of those who made this place special.
-
But this much is also true. The past is not locked away in a chest somewhere, only to be looked and polished once in a while. It's a real place, a real time that shapes and influences how we experience the present. What was once a happy place does not cease to be a happy place because time has moved on. In a strange twist, it remains forever happy because time has moved on.
-
Dimmaar baari lives through everyone - daughter, neighbours, grandchildren touched by its warmth. Dimmaar baari lives through every conversation that fondly recalls a moment of spontaneous laughter within its walls. Dimmaar baari lives because no matter how hard the sands of time try to bury what we call the 'past', it always peeks through, a source of comfort, a reminder of gentler times and carefree abandon.
-
[http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.in/2015/12/dimmaar-baari.html]
While Dimma fretted about how small her flat must feel for her restless grandchildren, we did not share her opinion. For us, G-5/6 was just right.
-
The right size for Dadubhai to open out the folding dinner table for us to have meals and bring in the 'folding khaat', our passport to adventure story nights during load-shedding; just the right size to barge out of, run into Anushua Maashi's next door and play with her Pomeranian; just the right size to go one more door over to Chakraborty Dimma's and look at (for the nth time) the brochure of miniature city Madurodam, marvelling at the brilliantly detailed little toy buildings, canals with toy ferries plying and true to real life model trains running between stations carrying the make believe citizens of this make believe world to their make believe work.
-
Greater adventures lay beyond. Down the road to Pinaki Dada's house where a treasure trove of Tintin comics awaited; further out to the Mother Dairy outlet where Didi and I would contest to be the one to put the token inside the milk vending machine and watch with amazement the cowless milk delivery. Even the boundary walls of Labony, their three striped walls with peepholes patterned on it like a fort, lent a special quality to the then quiet housing estate peopled with retirees like my maternal grandparents.
-
Not to forget, "Nondolal". The grandfather clock in my grandfather's house. The pendulum never ceasing to tick along ever since he made the long journey from Czechoslovakia to G-5/6, a prize for Dadubhai's extraordinary bridge playing skills. The weekly winding that Nondolal got and the unmistakable noise that his springs made were as much of a ritual as Dimma's worship of Krishno Thakur in her little wooden mandir. The pujo had special significance for us as we grandchildren would get the 'remaining' baataashaa offered to the Lord once he had had his fair share of it.
-
Dadubhai and Dimma have long gone to the place, where all things, good and bad, must fade but Nondolal marches on. Now on the wall of our Ripon Street home, he marks time, like he always did, partly because it is his mechanical duty, mostly because he represents the continuity that binds us all.
-
People often talk, gloomily, of wanting to go back to the past as if it is something we left behind on the trail of time. Walking down Labony's leafy tree lined lanes, up the dimly lit stairs to the first floor and into a familiar flat, I see a flaw in that theory.
-
This much is true. Gone are my Dimma's cool-er and tetul-er aachaar in their opaque plastic jars. Gone are the almirah full of crisply pressed white kurta pyjamas that were almost like Dadubhai's post retirement uniform. The rooms, empty and dusty, as late winter afternoon sunlight filters in, look so very different in the absence of those who made this place special.
-
But this much is also true. The past is not locked away in a chest somewhere, only to be looked and polished once in a while. It's a real place, a real time that shapes and influences how we experience the present. What was once a happy place does not cease to be a happy place because time has moved on. In a strange twist, it remains forever happy because time has moved on.
-
Dimmaar baari lives through everyone - daughter, neighbours, grandchildren touched by its warmth. Dimmaar baari lives through every conversation that fondly recalls a moment of spontaneous laughter within its walls. Dimmaar baari lives because no matter how hard the sands of time try to bury what we call the 'past', it always peeks through, a source of comfort, a reminder of gentler times and carefree abandon.
-
[http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.in/2015/12/dimmaar-baari.html]
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