Balcony view
I, the resident of a studio apartment in Paradise Apartments Block Q, do not have a balcony I can call my own. I am thirty years old, I read a novel a day, and I love monsoons – but none of that matters without a balcony. You know those rainy afternoons when all you want to do is grab a cup of tea and pretend to read some Proust? Where am I supposed to do that if I do not have a balcony? More urgently, how am I supposed to read the city without a balcony? An anthropologist once told me a city is like a palimpsest. What better vantage point than a balcony to read this palimpsest? I tried to explain this to my completely useless boss when she asked me why I was looking so glum these days. I told her that the I am parched for a balcony. In return, she joked that the Hyderabadi skyline is hardly remarkable; Mumbai, where she is from, is the skyline I should be lusting after, it seems. Nobody gets the Hyderabadi skyline tattooed on their forearms, she said smugly. Clearly, this woman does not even read books, forget having the literary sophistication to read the subtle skyline of this ancient city.
The next time she compares Hyderabad and Mumbai, I promise myself, I will get lock her in my studio and throw away the keys.
Reader, tell me this: how can a studio in Paradise apartments not have a little concrete cliff, jutting out into the metropolitan skyline? How is it paradise if I cannot step outside and see the rare sight of luscious clouds curdling in these otherwise clear Deccan skies? The apartment management should change the name of this building to “Paradise Only for Apartments Below Sixth Floor”. The rest of the building should be called Prison. Posh Prison, perhaps. The building manager recently told me that only studio apartments that are on the sixth floor and below have balconies. He said that the builder felt like people would “jump off their balconies and do suicide” otherwise. I told him to go to tell the builder that the lack of a balcony is making me want to “do suicide”. He laughed a lot. I asked him if he has a balcony and he said, “Of course! Who can live without one?” Shameless man.
The next time he laughs at my problems, I promise myself, I will lock him in my studio and throw away the keys.
I curse my luck every day. My father was right – I should have paid a little extra for an apartment with a balcony. Now what is the point? I am stuck with this matchbox apartment for ten months and twelve more days. I have become one of those human lizards who glue themselves to the windows of the gliding metro – just to catch a glimpse of the contours of the city. Every time I bring this up with my parents, my mother tells me that God did not want to give me a balcony because I had accrued bad neighborly karma by tying Saritha aunty’s freshly washed cotton sarees into tight knots whenever they would fall like curtains into our balcony. I remind her I was seven years old when I did that, and that her sarees looked like curtains. She reminds me that life is nothing but a series of ironies. My father reminds both of us that we used to pay for Saritha aunty’s ironing after my rebellious antics. Every time I bring this up with my parents, we laugh like we did when Saritha aunty threatened to call the police.
The next time Saritha aunty troubles my parents with her curtain sarees, I promise myself, I will lock her in my studio and throw away the keys.
My friends often ask me why I make such a big fuss about balconies. What will you do with a balcony, they ask me. They even point to the laundromat in my building and claim that I should stop complaining because I have access to the market’s finest dryers. These fools think that I want to hang my clothes on the balcony. As if I would deface my precious balcony with the disturbing sight of flailing bras and panties – like some staged sartorial suicide. “Do not instrumentalize the space of a balcony!” I often scold them. It just makes them laugh harder. Why is that all they can think about when I talk about balconies is hanging their laundry? There should be a law that prohibits such utilitarian behavior.
The next time they trivialize the purpose of a balcony, I promise myself, I will lock them in my studio and throw away the keys.
And then I will go to one of their homes and take over their balcony. I will take over all balconies. Everywhere!
Through the day, I will tend to my beautiful begonias, lovely lobelias, magical marigolds, pouty pansies, handsome hibiscuses, benedictory basil, fortifying fenugreek, and the customary curry tree; I will dance and sing to the mellifluous music of monsoon as people from other balconies watch, mesmerized and envious; I will wink at young, shirtless men in other balconies and quickly look away; I will hang a hammock that lay in it, pretending to read literary fiction while actually just napping; I will hold a cup of Nescafe, look out into the world, and sip my red cup with the swag of confident contentment. In the night, I will gaze into the world outside with a glass of Malbec in my hand, and I will write love letters; I will twirl a lit cigarette in my hand and watch the wispy smoke write its own love letters; I will watch the stars flirt with moon as she longs to get with the roving jet plane that comes and goes whenever he wants to; I will cry; I wll sing; I will dance; I will laugh; I will live.
And, the next time someone’s saree spills into my balcony, I promise myself, I will light it on fire.