To have an acre of open space around a house in a city is something we cannot dream of today. During the 1950s it was possible. It was no big deal at all. We, my parents and three sisters, lived in a modest house in an open compound of about half an acre in Bangalore city and paid a rent of Rs.60. Our house was stuck to one corner of the compound wall and so we had two open sides. To play, cycle, run around on stilts, climb trees, play hop-scotch, run and catch, pluck fruits from trees… Amid all this we were able to have a badminton court as well.
The compound wall was built with stone blocks with spaces in between. My sisters and I would make mud paste, create vadas out of them and place one inside the holes of the stone-blocks.
We did not have a TV to watch, nor did we have tablets or mobile phones. All we did was play, play and play in the sun and the rain with abandon. Our maid lived in the outhouse. She had a cow and a buffalo, and their calves were our companions.
We completed schooling and went to college unaware of how it would be to live in places that had no open space. Whenever I visited some of my friends who lived in apartments I would feel asphyxiated. The sky was not to be seen. There would be other tall buildings around even if we peeped from the windows.
At that time it had never occurred to us that a time would come in the history of Bengaluru when all the areas would become hell-holes of apartments where people hankered for space. Not that these apartments are really hell-holes. Many of them are luxurious and have good surroundings, but still it is not like the old times when we had so much of space around us to play as we liked.
Did we realise all this? I don’t think so. Once when I went to Mumbai to stay with one of my friends, I found the balcony was the only open space in the house. I would be always tempted to go there to spend some time. Unfortunately even the balcony was enclosed with grilles and even the little light that could come in would be from behind the screen of a clothesline.
I have this feeling within me that the more open space that we grow up in, the more open our mind and heart are. None of us bickered for our own space to study for examinations or to sleep at night. Our house was a small one, but because the open space around us was so open that our mind could open out to the openness of mind, body and soul all through the day and we were able to spend more time at home with the closeness of our own family.
I remember studying for examinations on the branches of trees, on the stone benches in the compound and memorising poems sitting on the rope swing that was tied to the mango tree.
There was no ornamental garden around. It was as wild as it could be with lantanas, prickly pears and touch-me-nots growing all over. A few flowering plants existed there from the time we occupied the house. Jasmine, Jaaji, nanadabatlu and many more of them.
“You have so many flowers in your garden. Why don’t you wear them on your hair?” people would ask.
“String them? What for? They look prettier on their own plants than they would on our oily hairs,” I would say.
“After all they are bound to dry and fall off. Won’t they?”
“Maybe, but they will look prettier on the ground than they would on anyone’s hair. They must have their own space, shouldn’t they?”
The philosophy of openness is something that should be properly understood. As long as the mind and heart are open to the openness of space in nature and also between people, there cannot be any narrowing of outlook in thoughts, words and deeds.
Often I feel all the conflicts of the present time regarding borders, rivers, lands and emotions come out of suffocation both outside and inside our souls. Who can help us?
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