Down that lane…

I am not going to give any more thought to Russia, Ukraine or NATO… utter nonsense! Humans indulge in such sport when they have surplus to eat and enough to waste, I guess. We in India can’t afford war as a luxurious extra curricular activity…We have lost much too many in our seven decades of freedom. So lets deviate…

What’s a place without it’s people? People and places have contributed to our existence and I too can recall them on a jaunt down memory lane. After all, if not for them, I won’t be what I am today. What I am today? Existential wisdom 😀 will touch on it in one of the later thought posts!

Usha was one such human who taught me something about space. A loving househelp, who aligned herself to a forced single working woman- me, out of a similar feeling of sisterhood more than the remuneration. She was a spinster by circumstances… to support a younger brother and his family in penury and destitution.

She lovingly invited me home on a festival. A door in a dark alley, with overhanging cables was her house. Her own space, not a rented one, she proudly announced. I entered to face the rear wall with utensils hanging from it, a small stove on the floor right beneath to earmark the cooking space. Look right and there was a wide bed raised a foot high with bricks and props added to its original height. The space beneath was her bedroom, above was for her brother and family! Clothes hung from the wall on both levels. Two iron trunks propped atop each other acted as headrest to both levels, and probably held the family’s precious items.No attached… No porch, balcony, no carpet area concept here. It was just an 8″X 6″ wall to wall home with a door for window and entry.

That’s all. Years of planning to own a decent 2500 square feet apartment versus the space under a bed. Usha dear, thank you for the life lesson.