The Barren Corridor

Years back, in course of my tiny ten minutes walk from home to school past the railway tracks, there stood this rather queer building that always took my fancy. Standing three-storeys tall and in a forsaken, hirsute state, the eye-catcher of this structure, at least as far as I was concerned, was the 2nd floor balcony - with no parapet at all. A strangely empty open body of a long veranda I had not seen anywhere else before or again. I cannot put my pen on the exact reason why this balcony intrigued me, but it sure did for a very long time – through almost seven years of my high schooling.

There were stories I imagined walking down that barren corridor; not of ghosts and scare, but of a different kind. Of freedom and sky and lazy childhood afternoons, then of romances and poetry and adolescent dreams, then of independence, capabilities, success, ambitions and distant aspirations, and quite frequently, of a certain kind of desirable loneliness.

And this house also reminded me of the home I never had along the 18 years of my growing up. I used to think, what if someone, just out of the blue, gave that to us for a steal deal; anyway it did not seem inhabited save a couple of men I sometimes noticed going in and out of the rooms adjacent to the balcony – some unused, unnecessary office of a dumped business perhaps.

Whatever it was, this strange house a block away from the railway lines with its unguarded balcony arrested my attention every time I passed either by the flyover or the tracks. And stayed back like a fallen floating leaf under some layer of my mind, even years later.

~~~

About a month back, I first happened to notice this new construction on the plot where this house used to be. My broken balcony was missing, its place effortlessly taken by the tall structure of a G+4 apartment frame; this, in tune and on time with the new shopping mall coming up in the plot right opposite. No wonder the dilapidated house not touched for a period of at least 10-15 years got promoted overnight to this stately building. Money moves things like nothing can, and faster than one can predict.

Nothing much for me, really.
I don’t look at that direction anymore as I pass by on my way to office; there is nothing to look at; nothing that intrigues, or interests or has any nook within its framework for trains of irrelevant, lazy thoughts and dreams. What is – shows these days, clearly and loudly. So, what is there to look at, what thoughts to carry anyway?

Well, one wee luggage off my cargo :o)

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