time of my life

A Room with a View

That room needed a change. A change of fixtures, soft furnishing, look and whatever was left of his memory. His plush toys needed to tour the Laundromat, his clothes were ready to be packed away in a suitcase, his books needed to go to school once again. He, in brief, wanted to go away. Or perhaps I needed an extra space. Once upon a memory, the room had no windows and no light. The verandah was a wasted thirty odd square feet with the view of the ugly generator that was hostile to silence. It broke pauses, smashed empty spaces and by habit, ruled over all it could cover with its huffs and puffs. There was yet another unfriendly pair that hogged on to that otherwise redundant space. The washing machine and the drying unit had become grey with dust and age and had sought permanent residence in that area as well. Funny, how fat and ugly objects compete with life. For as long he was there, all three led uninterrupted existence. He had never thrown a fit, never complained of having a dark, windowless room.

But I did. Ever since I contemplated moving into his space, six years later, I found it difficult to even say my prayers there. Every time I hit my prayer mat, I felt as if someone was grabbing me from my back. Was it the fear of the night? Or was it simply darkness?

For six years, that room had remained a home to his spirit. Upon the seventh, I wanted it.

The packed closet was neatly folded into a decent Samsonite. The drawers filled with books were emptied and were loaded into a vehicle that carried them to his school. His toys remained locked in the adjoining storage space. The biggest foes, the incurably inefficient washing machine and the dryer unit were kicked away and had to settle in to a congested store by the kitchen. The generator, however, refused to move. Hence he stayed and I moved in.

 He made noise and I quietly put up glass windows on the verandah to shield me from its hideous sight and intolerable noise. I accommodated and he just stayed. On the rebound, I broke the walls and created a window. The window was flatly constructed, had no drama, had no mystery, and no gimmick. But I had broken the walls down. With every bang and thud, and with every fall of those pieces of obstinate concrete, I felt as if I had traded my grief for light. All that needed to move in were the old layers of books, the old racks of music and the new pile of me.

It takes an occasion to blog. Not really, though.

I could blog all the time if I wanted to. Events, non-events; moments, non moments, faces, non faces: all make me think and write. Generally aero plane rides make me remember God and right when the little angel with almost no wings drops around a couple of thousand feet, and my heart’s about to be ripped, I get ready to gather material to blog. Two days ago, the tiny GMG that was carrying me back to Dhaka made a funny screechy noise. It went: cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!cheeeeeeeeeee! Generally if there are bumps along the way, I look outside and try and see for how long the clouds will be playing host to the swing. But in case of strange noises, I have no one to resort to but God. During that particular spiritual encounter of mine with GMG, the captain had called the stewardess in and was showing her a tissue paper. My heart felt easy. Nothing serious then!

But soon a bearded gentleman rushed towards the exit door and had started wiping the exit door with a piece of tissue. Strangely with every stroke of his, the noise receded. I discovered that my source of fear had originated with the wind cutting through the exit door and making that noise.

 And that was the strangest maintenance procedure I had ever witnessed.

As a rare witness to that extraordinary maintenance procedure, I could only recite: Inalillah. Forty five minutes along the way, we landed safely and in one piece. On my way back home, I habitually called a friend and exchanged pleasantries. Her husband, incidentally is an incurable gambler. After hearing my airplane Inalillah account, she hastened to share hers and blurted out: InnaNNepal. What she meant was that the day before, her bitter half had traveled to Nepal in search of luck and leisure. And since with every visit of his she usually died a second death, at that point, her reflexes guided her to identify with my near-death feeling. The dual InnaLLAH situation provided me with sufficient hilarity to blog.

Well, I blog, you read. I blurt, you digest. I emote, you swallow. I race and at the end of it all, you learn.

All at my expense!

Post script:
7:40 am June 10th

Yesterday while we were about to start our descent from 13000 feet. there was yet another noise and this time it was a BHAW…………BHAW……….BHAW……..BHAW! It was as if the mini beast had grown into a full fledged killer. The chee was now a BHAW and the mini tissue this time was replaced by a toilet paper roll. We survived and landed safely. Meantime my fellow passenger, a Bangladeshi cum a UN laissez-passer holder screamed his lungs out and said: “Excuse me, are you trying to kill us all? There’s a leak there! Is it a school bus you are running here?”
The tech guy looked cool and answered: “It’s only a small one, sir!”
At that point, I took a closer look at the crew and noticed that he had a beard. I had more faith in his beard than I had on his skills or the toy he was flying.