Growing Up...

She was walking around, looking at the world through her pink shades. Everything seemed rosy. She had Dido crooning White Flag, a song about change into her eardrums. She trudged on, without glancing at anything, walking straight, gazing at the dusty horizon.

Suddenly, she tripped, fell off balance and landed with a thud. Her knees were bruised and bleeding, her palms were scraped. She got up, dug into her XL sized handbag, ruffled for a few minutes and grabbed her water bottle. Took a few sips and sighed. Suddenly, she removed her shades and realised that the sun had disappeared and the clouds had taken over. It began raining and before she realised, she was dripping wet. She placed her bag over her head and rushed to a nearby petrol pump, seeking shelter and answers.

Oh how the weather had changed without intimation, she thought. But then, isn’t that how life happens? She thought about all the people she knew. The once smooth faces of her parents now were lined with fine wrinkles. She drifted back to old times when hanging out with friends would mean simple harmless gossip over a five-rupee stick icecream. Now, her timeline was filled with wedding pictures and her friends with their babies. Yes, married and parents. Wow! Discussions had shifted planes from who’s seeing whom, to who’s cooking what. They’d grown up.

And then, the final strand of her meaningless time travel brought back her reflection in the mirror. Did anything change there? Not much, The height, sadly still the same. The face -- the same old boring one. Her eyes however, that used to twinkle with the advent of seeing the world, now shone with wisdom of having seen it. Yes, she’d seen it. Changes.

It stopped raining. The sun was tired playing hide and seek, so much, that it openly challenged the clouds, that had, by now, retreated like a cornered animal. She placed her shades back and it was rosy again.

A house then, home now

The house was nice. The tiles, they were neat. The furniture wasn’t over-the-top, but was compactly adequate. The bedsheets were decent, not too well-picked. She walked in, not looking at swishing her magic wand and turning everything around. The barren kitchen was being taken care of, little by little. Plastic jars, a kitchen queen, dinner sets of all forms -- melamine, plastic, china. Beautiful cane lamps splashed a new lease of life to the otherwise boring walls. Terracotta artwork displayed on intrinsically handwoven cane discs. Beautiful lamps on tiles that now wore a more polished look. Carefully hand-picked bedsheets and matching pillow cases replaced the old one. Soon, new curtains came in. Mats and carpets added blobs of colour to the floor. Everything had a designated place. Everything was chosen carefully. Everything was bought and gifted with oodles of love. Well-planned, every penny spent to its worth.

Bit by bit, they transformed their apartment into home. Their nest, their paradise. A house then, a home now. Homes aren't built overnight. You need to invest love and care. Only then can the beautiful transformation begin...