The View Outside My Window
Over the last few weeks, I have been writing in an old white book. The white pages now filled with crawled writing and a common nucleus—the window, my window. I wrote about past incidents, glorious awkward moments. For instance, when I acted as a TV anchor and hosted talk shows with stray animals or spoke to objects.
As I gazed at the window, I realised that the wooden and glass square box served as several frames that kept changing. It began with the bright light blending with the dark sky, birds flying around accompanied by their chirps and whistles. The rays of the light playing hide and seek during the autumn days followed by the dramatic sunsets. The birds flying towards another land was an indication that the sky was getting covered with a blanket of grey and black. There are few homes and a small pathway outside the window. At the end of the frame stands a giant tree which is now bare.
Every now and then, I stared into this world through my window. The glass slowly turning into a device that pushed me to think deeper and deeper. It was surreal to watch the trees transition from red, yellow and orange, and then lose every piece of their garment. Back home, I swept dried leaves and collected them under a tree. The season of autumn was another season. The thought of home was always lingering in the air.
I looked at the glass frame and listened to the autumn wind. The thumps from the branches were the few sounds besides my feet moving from one room to another. A part of me lived on this vibrant unknown land, while the other half dwelled in a place I called home. As I watched the few pink flowers outside my window, I noticed questions flying around; some questions looked back at me while the others moved away. I tried to shift my attention, but my eyes were transfixed to, where do I belong?
I was around eighteen when I read a novel centred around estrangement, identity, and displacement. The novel was a recommended text as part of the six-month introduction to literature—The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I remember fragments of Lahiri's character, Anjali, moving from India to the USA after an arranged marriage. It is a faint memory where Anjali combines Rice Krispies with chopped red onions, lime juice, thin-sliced chillies and eats this concoction during her pregnancy. A favoured snack sold on the streets of India. Lahiri’s description of this humble snack was striking. When I think of this descriptive text, it brings back the memories of street food and the tangy flavours that filled the air. However, I could never relate to the glorious description by Lahiri of the familiar land, even after displacement.
I was born in Dubai but grew up in Mumbai—a densely populated city in India. My cultural roots go back to Goa; a state in India which was ruled by the Portuguese. This amalgamation is incomplete without mentioning that I was raised as a Roman Catholic: a minority in a country that strives on religion, mainly Hinduism. I grew in a surrounding where people experienced similar complexities; all tied together with this identical string.
The air around was always diverse. I woke up to the sounds of bells; sometimes by the blow of conch shells carried by the wind. One could find diversity in many forms: in the house next door, among the people surrounding the vegetable cart, in the faces encountered during train journeys, or simply between the people with whom you brushed shoulders on the crowded streets.
The first language I spoke was English followed by my mother tongue Konkani. But I fail to recollect if this was the order or the other way around. I scribbled English as my mother tongue in the school calendar. But I was always reminded that it was Konkani. I often found myself tangled in the web of, where do I belong? Identity crisis had crawled in from childhood.
The sound of varied diction and dialect, often resembled another recipe to prepare Indian curry. Several spices combined together, slowly roasting and blending with the oil. The aroma from the spices strong enough to linger in the house. For me, this aroma lasted for a short time. It was instant gratification. Similar to the experience consumerism brings to our lives. Every time I found myself getting tangled in the complexity of identity and culture, I sipped the humble chai standing on the crowded streets of Mumbai and stared at the moving world. A way of accepting and embracing them all.
Never did I realise this melange would influence my writing. I don’t remember picking up a book besides the wordy English textbooks during childhood. Despite the not-so vibrant illustrations, I always found solace in reading them. The newspaper was another source that introduced me to the world of words. When I started writing during my late teens, I saw a voice buried under the use of heavy adjectives. But I continued living a life of accepting the present and looking at the past as the past.
As I wrote, I found it difficult to imagine a world of fantasy. I read a few books from this genre. Also, a few literary texts during my six months literature course. ‘Few’ recurring in the above sentences is an indication of my limited literary knowledge. But I was always making mental notes. However, when I wrote, I saw myself leaning to the past and present.
But why not fiction? This question has often intrigued me. I wrote a few fiction short stories and kept bringing ‘I’ in every character. A part of me formed the base of these characters. All my characters and settings were influenced by identity. I could not hide behind them. My voice was overpowering, it wanted to peel off the mask and reveal itself, always.
This was the beginning of borrowing fragments from my surroundings. It was amusing to watch myself go back and forth to the places I liked and disliked. When I write, I have often found myself stepping into this room, where religion, culture, conservative thinking, traditions, and city-life all transform into people. Each of them encouraging me to elucidate my thoughts. I have also visualised all the unspoken words gazing back. At the same time, there is absolute silence in the room. There is a constant conflict: the act of viewing the land as an outsider or clothing myself with all the intricacies. This fight within drives me to think of the people around who accepted displacement and identity crisis in a land they called their own.
As I have submerged myself in the sea of questions, a part of me is scared of the dark blue waters. The other half is reminding me of the light above the waters. It tells me that I have a choice. It reminds me that through displacement I have become the frames within the frames. I have become the window.
My voice, like the window, has the power to allow the light to pass through and show the changing landscapes despite the intricacies of life.
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WORDLY Magazine ‘Discord’ Edition 3 2020
Published on Sep 7, 2020
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