THE YELLOW WALL Earlier last month after going through a terrible tragedy in the family, barely had we started coming to terms with it and after performing all d rituals when we landed back, awaiting us was another shock on our entrance door which some of d expats like us wud have gone through A Premise Eviction Court Order from the landlord. Reason: they decided to sell a entire building off!!! Flashback: after shifting 3 apartments in d span of 3 years (2008-2011) we had enough of packing and unpacking stuff with 2 small kids. Finally when on the 4 th house hunting spree in 2012, we checked all d familiar places but either due to d rent or d size of the rooms we cldnt get what we wanted and finally we hear about our current place which we never intended to go in for as we had not heard abt this place during our 3 years of residence. As usual for any human mind resisting change when moved from their comfort zone I was against the idea. After viewing couple of apartments, the conversation goes like this: Husband: frankly speaking we did not like any of these because d rooms r too small for our wardrobes and beds to fit in. Me: can u show any other apartment which is decently big?? Real Estate Broker: I have shown you most of the vacant apartments in this area Husband: do u know about this place in d newspaper??? They say its a new bldg and they have open house. Broker: well i dont deal in that area, but 1 thing I can assure you. (Hindi;- aap ek baar jaakar dekhiye. Wahaan to duniya hai). U will like d place!! Husband thanks d broker and we move towards our car still d thought of moving to donno where and godaam (godown) and all sorts of adjectives drooling on my mind. I slowly hint my dislike for the idea but husband says: we will simply have a look and if we dont like it we wont move that side We reach the venue. Outwardly lookwise it was not all that great. We enquired abt d open house. D person showed us cpl of apartments. It was huge, spacious rooms with an open kitchen with an enormously long balcony. We immediately liked the place. D entire bldg was empty and we cld choose whatever we wanted. We decided we wud go in for a 2 bed apartment even though we cld afford 3 b/a as we r only 4 of us and parents visit us only once during the year. Husband said lets explore this area and we step out of the building into the common area. And lo!!! What i see is lot of greenery which we were longing for in the last 3 years. Previously it was like stepping out of the building and on the road, even no play area for the kids. Now i see a huge football ground, a joggers track, a swimming pool, a gym. When we went further down d lane, a clock tower,a branded department store and a autodrome and kartodrome....... In short a small town in itself. It indeed was duniya. Slowly it started becoming our dream home and we decided if everything goes well we wud not move out of this place as long as we are here and year after year we wud renew our contract. D second year i felt d walls were quite monotonous and so got my main entrance wall and one of my bedroom walls painted chrome yellow. Just loved the outcome. I just love you my YELLOW WALL Since I am a WARLIOHOLIC (crazy about the WARLI art, which is a tribal art form of Maharashtra), most of the home decor done by me has got a WARLI touch to it and hence but obvious the yellow walls looked incomplete without a warli touch to it. And so i started of with painting tiny warli motifs on the wall. A continuous one day job with getting up in the middle only to feed the kids. Thank god the kids were having their ID holidays. The black on the base yellow looked stunning!! And since it was d main entrance wall , i wanted it to be the focal point. Still there was something missing. How about adding a hint of light to the wall and wot could be better than mirror.Thats when I was reminded of a crafty purchase in India, tiny mirror pieces. I immediately opened out my junk box(friends call it teasingly). They say all junk cld find a place in your home, since i love to recycle broken stuff and do something creative with it. Found a packet or 2 of different sized mirrors. I immediately glued them on to d wall and voilà it looked lovely. Kids just loved it . My older one said it was amazing. Couldnt wait for the day to end to show it to hubby who is my biggest critic. He just loved the wall too! Since i am a recycloholic as well, had saved a few broken pcs of a dining chair from the old apartment time. Immediately made a small wall shelf out of it to keep small curios. How gud wud it be without warli on it. So painted d motifs on it as well. It looked nice but still der was something missing to it and i felt der was lot of assymmetric empty spaces. For some time now i have had an affinity towards brass handicrafts and traditional curios and every trip back home means some brass shopping! So this time i wanted to pick up some traditional bells. A leading metalware store quoted an exorbitant price for a brass bell with chain. It was just then my eyes fell on a basket full of loose bells of different sizes in a corner. I immediately asked d price and it was 1/10- 1/6 the price of the bell. Picked up cpl of them. The salesperson at the store said that they dont sell d chain seperately and that i would have to buy it as a big lot. Since my in-laws are supportive of my art and craft, my mom- in- law suggested that I check at a small store close to our house back home to which I agreed and to my surprise I found some more of them there and d sales guy agreed to sell even the chain. Was tooo thrilled at my purchase and couldnt wait to reach back home. Back home I was yet to figure out how and where to use those bells. After quite a lot if pondering, I arrived at d idea of hanging them under the shelf. Again the outcome was amazing!! Cant explain how much we are in love you our YELLOW WALL. Our day begins and ends with a look at you and everytime We pass by you we cannot stop admiring you. But the thought of having to vacate leaves us feeling terrible. D mirrors adorning her would be plucked out mercilessly and sanded. Our lovely YELLOW WALL would b stripped of her paint!!! Similarly each and every corner has a story to tell. It not just a house. It was our home!! This is a reality and d thought of vacating is always dormant in our minds and surfaces towards the end of each contract period .I am sure most of other expat readers would agree with me and would be feeling the same. How we could tell you our YELLOW WALL how much we love you and we wish we could take you along!!!
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 08:18:07 +0000
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