One for Joy: spaces

Showing posts with label spaces. Show all posts

July 4, 2012

Spaces

There is something so personal yet so impersonal about space. About making something your space.

You do everything to make it feel like home, cosy, putting things into their right place, changing the colours of walls, adding paintings, shifting bookshelves. Yet somehow, when you’re asked to move spaces, move house, you’re able to recreate that same feeling of home all over again. It makes me wonder exactly what we need to make something ours, and our space.

Is my space just a frame of mind? Surely if I was so at ‘home’ in a certain locale I wouldn’t be able to recreate that somewhere else? Or is it simply my belongings that make it a home for me? What do I need to feel connected, to lay down roots all over again?

As I get ready to change spaces, in more ways than one, I’m struck afresh by what it takes to recreate the same feeling of belonging over and over again. All I need is my loved ones, some odds and ends, and some furniture? That’s fantastic yet humbling to know. We're not some high-functioning creatures whose needs cannot be easily met. We're satisfied with a couple of chairs and our television sets. Take us anywhere and we'll grow deep, nourishing roots.

Goes to show . . . the world is our oyster.

May 7, 2012

Club Class

My brother is a member of the wonderful and old-world Delhi Golf Club. As non-golfers, the rest of us have only been to the club for their Sunday lunches, which are an extravaganza of people and food and avoidable at best. He rolls his eyes in exasperation whenever we suggest going to The Pub there, blaming his closest friends (who drag him there every weekend) for his boredom with the place. This time though, we hold our own, making sure we are at the club on Friday, brother in tow, ready for a long and happy evening. The DGC does not let us down.
The Pub boasts a lovely veranda that overlooks the greens. It’s a beautiful view at dusk, the sky lilac above the ruins of Mir Taqi and Sayyid Abid’s tombs in the distance. You find Burrah-Sahibs in golf attire sprawled on deck chairs, knocking back their drinks as inviting smells from the freshly fired barbeque greet your nostrils. Near the door sit a trio of ladies in pastel-hued chiffons and pearls, sipping their wine, smoking their cigarettes and ostensibly playing cards. I want their life, but my brother reminds me that they’re probably over 70 with little else to do. Even so...
Inside the pub is more fun. There’s beautiful wooden furniture with brass fixtures. Smiling waiters rush to greet my brother, giving us ‘the best’ table. It’s near the door with a good view of the happenings outside. I’m handed a call bell and a menu. I have to ring that bell, and as soon as we’ve decided what we want I’m ringing it, pinkie raised. It may be soft but it's highly effective - we're waited on within minutes.
As night falls, people start trickling in and before we even realize it, the place is full. The oldies have been replaced by 30-somethings looking to tank up on the extremely affordable drinks before hitting the city’s hot spots. The atmosphere gets louder, more raucous and more smokey. All the while, the waitstaff in their black and white splendour calmly walk from table to table supplying more food and more drinks. Generations of youngsters who probably weren’t allowed in The Pub as kids are now living it up here with their own friends. I love the idea that in some small way you grow into the lives of your parents, doing what they did but with your own little twist.
The old and the new collides around you at the club, subtly but surely. It's like a blast from the past that you can keep going back to any day of the week.