Writing on the wall

The expression of spaces, and the public lives of private people

When Khwaabghar began taking shape, I spent a lot of time thinking about spaces. What is it about a space that inspires comfort? How should it be structured? When should it open? Should it be open to all?

…

This wasn't a very helpful trail, so I did what I know best. I took long walks and journaled about the earliest spaces I inhabited- my childhood home and the nearest Gurudwara. You already know from my last post that libraries were absent from my landscape growing up, so there’s little inspiration to be found there. This edition of the newsletter talks about these spaces as metaphors, the building blocks of what Khwaabghar is trying to be, and what it’s not. It outlines my childhood home, the biggest influence in how I think of a community, and how that has changed over time. I am leaving the Gurudwara influence for a later, longer edition. At the end of the post is an update on what we are reading at Khwaabghar, and a call for the next meet-up!

Home: Seeking Balance

Seeking Balance. O-48, North Delhi.

I was born in North Delhi, and lived in our family house for the first ten years of my life. The house was simply called O-48, as my universe of reference remained limited to the fifteen houses I saw around me. Standing on the corner of a lane unsure of its class status, the house had expanded in all directions with the march of evolution. As our family saved up over time, a room made an appearance wherever construction was possible. Every room was an ode to little progress. The haphazard expansion meant that our house was amenable to games. It is possible that some games were invented as a result of the space available. Once we had money enough to leave, we did. I never visited my childhood home after we left it. Not because I didn’t miss it, but because I did not want to see it transformed. Some places have a continuity to them. Like things left here would never change. My first home is one such place- an abandoned and unchanging memory. Until now.

There were three houses we crossed to reach our own corner house. Despite being a part of a lane of first floor houses with common stairs and formerly common toilets, ours had a protruding iron gate marking the house with remarkable finality. It was a grey gate lined with black grill patterns on the top and bottom. I have a very specific memory of a monkey opening the gate with the finesse of a salesperson out on his day job. The iron gate exerted its force only after it got dark enough to sleep. During the day it was never closed, making it simple for me and my sister to flow like water between cells. In fact, we were hardly at home and no one ever came looking. There was a healthy exchange of people, gossip, recipes, and food between verandas. All vegetables were cut and peeled in full view of the entire neighbourhood and usually, with some of them.

Days and events in this house had a quality of incompleteness. Tiny curiosities took a few moments of absolute and complete necessity, shedding their importance even as they happened. The house had that flavour only houses with little children can- nothing that happens here can be taken seriously. The small corridors which emerged from the unplanned construction were quickly claimed by me and my sister for afternoon games. These games were supposed to be awfully quiet as Mumma and Badi Mumma were asleep in the next room. Looking back, I think we took Mumma and Badi Mumma as a single unit of reference against whom afternoon secrets and games were saddled. It was like two armies marking their territory, and guarding their space even as friendly trade continued for the rest of the day. There were details in the doorways meant to underscore our presence- a metal rod across the living room door for me and my sister to hang from, a home made wooden plank of a swing suspended from the partition between two roofs, a green basket full of home-stitched Barbie clothes under the rusty legs of the cooler fan. Some of the Barbies had gone bald with all the brushing and bathing routines we put them through, and some had found life outside the afternoon hours- in the minutes before night sleep. Characters yet to become dolls had found their way into the storylines and we frequently fell short of toys to pin the plot on.

The veranda was always put to good use.

And then there was our bedroom: a mysterious square with a bed, used more as a passage to Babaji’s room than anything else. It was the reservoir of childish secrets, dreams, and joys- the locus of my lies and stories at school, and the most obvious but tempting hide-and-seek spot. The simple fact that me and my sister had a bedroom in that house did not register for a very long time. We slept anywhere, played everywhere. There was no place in the house which contained all that we might need to get through a few hours.

I did not realise the full import of Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ until I was in college and had a room to myself for the first time. It was a privilege I came into, and staying up the entire night without hiding, seeking permission, or disturbing anyone’s sleep became the newest thrill. In O-48, having the light on would have become a matter of discussion not just in the house, but also over the common tandoor kept in O-44. My first house was the very picture of childhood- people, stories, food, and very full evenings. With an ability to make do and rejoice, it was a safety net which a ten year would not prick. It was a small circle of reliable people, most of us indistinguishable- it was a neighbourhood which became a family. But this circle was closed with a defined sense of self, and overlapping, invisible threads of accountability.

As I set myself against this definition, I retreated into a vast personal space. Over time of course, my personal space became so ample, that boundaries became fences. I lost the shared recipes of O block with the extended evenings of vegetable cutting, the corridors with the walls. Khwaabghar is my way of walking back, but not all the way. It is my way of acknowledging interdependence without losing my sense of self. It is not a proud and assuming family, and there will be no WhatsApp groups either. It will remain a balance of some very fragile words- Khwaabghar: A Community Library.

---

Reading this month

I am reading a lot about love this month, and the forms it takes across generations and ideologies… very Love Aaj Kal. Recently (re)read Normal People, Forty Rules of Love, Love Story (I don’t know what the fuss is about), and Audre Lorde’s essay on eroticism. I know, it has been an impulsive month. Next on my list is Bastards of Istanbul, Jugalbandi, Autumn Light, and a continued reading of Sara Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life. Please reach out if you’d like to talk about any of these- some of the community members are reading together!

Meetup!

I am looking to host a small meet-up at Khwaabghar once the Gurgaon pollution sheds. This will most likely be a weekend picnic (20/27 November) to celebrate my favourite season- please email me at manmeetkaur0312@gmail.com if you’d like to receive further details. If you are a part of the Clear Writing Community, wait for the group message!