Doll House

The huge LCD screen is continuously on throughout the day and I feel throughout the night too! Only the people sitting in front of it change- sometimes there is a man, sometimes a woman and sometimes a young girl. All these are conjectures for I can see only the head from my balcony. The screen is so huge that I am able to realize that Simpsons is their favorite show! I call them the Simpson family.

Early in the morning she stands on her balcony in shorts and t shirt and does stretching exercise facing the sun. When I wake up and pull the curtains back I see her on the tenth floor opposite me. I meet her on and off through the day.  During my post bath leisure time when I lounge on the bed with the newspaper, I see her on the stationary cycle working out. (Did I forget to tell that she has a lovely figure?) I can’t make out how old she is but I am sure she is no young girl (they never bother with exercise!). She is the Gym girl.

Sunday mornings, I see this couple have their tea on the narrow balcony with the morning sun playing gently on the ferns that enclose them in their own private space. The lady is obviously house- proud – lots of plants and decorative pottery items with a Bankura horse standing majestically on one side. They actually talk to each other! I have seen couples who go to Café coffee day on Sunday mornings having huge mugs of coffee and talking on their respective cell phones! They are the lovely twosome for me.

He comes out, wearing a towel, to pour water on the tulsi plant and pray to the sun. The apartment is normally shrouded with curtains so I have no idea about the other inmates of the house. I refer to him as the Pujari.

The swinging chair is hardly ever occupied. The house is filled with servants- one comes to dry the clothes, one to polish the balcony railings one to sweep and mop and so one. I have yet to meet the owner who I have christened “The swinger”.

These are my regular “friends”. They are a part of my daily life. I notice them as I go about my daily routine. I do not consciously ogle at them; they are like the birds in the sky, they are there so you see them. I miss them when they do not follow their routine! I  notice them in the morning as I spend most of my time at the back of the house. My evenings are spent in the front and there are no interesting people in the front apartments. Though they are lighted and there are lots of activities – I am too caught up to have the time to notice them.

One evening as I was lying down on the bed and reading, I looked up at the apartments in front of me. Each house was lighted and the curtains were pulled back. I could see the furniture and the people clearly. They looked like dolls in a doll house.

As a child I used to love playing with dolls and make up stories about them,I even made them enact my tales. Here in front of me was a living breathing doll house!

I don’t have the inclination to make up stories any longer but sometimes I do conjecture about them when I talk with Mickey.

I wonder if I am guilty of “invasion of privacy” or even voyeurism. I wonder if God himself entertains himself by sitting and looking at each one of us living life. I wonder if each of the characters in my doll house would resent the fact that I have designated them as doll figures in my sphere of existence.

I know I most probably will never meet them. In fact I do not want to do so, as reality is so very unromantic! But if I ever do so, I will (I know) pretend that I did not know of their existence. Sometimes we get so attached to the portraits that we have created that reality makes the paint crumble and the disappointment becomes unbearable.

Do not believe that I am advocating living in an imaginary world! What I am trying to say that the real world is reality and we have to live it. It is wonderful and stressful at the same time. It is good, once in a while to escape from this dimension and explore another one where life is perfect. This does not hurt another person but helps you to de-stress.

The world is very busy now. It is also a very lonely world. All are busy with their lives and have no time for others. (You hear of people being dead in the next door apartment and no one knows of it till the newspaper and milk packets pile up outside the door!).

These little cameos go a long way in relieving the ennui of modern life and who knows how many lessons we may learn from them.

I wonder if anyone notices my activities through the day………….