Har Ghar Chup Chaap Se Yeh Kehta Hai..

 ‘Har ghar chup chaap se yeh kehta hai, ki andhar usme  kaun rehta hai’, ! These legendary lines from an old advertisement crafted by a maverick ad man who recently passed on, was the first thing that came to mind when I went past the building that used to house the Montessori that I went to, till about seven years ago. One of the few surviving incredibly beautiful art deco structures with a lovely  garden and a park right across the street, I was dismayed to find the building being torn down. As with most old homes in that locality, the space will soon be replaced with a concrete and glass monstrosity; a building that would wipe away traces of the joyous moments spent in that house. While I have no stake in that space, the loss felt deeply personal to the little girl in me, who’d found a sense of belonging there . 

If a time machine did truly exist, a trip to fifteen years ago would take you back to 2010, the year that the barely five year old me stepped into a beautiful house that had just been re-modelled into a school, my steps uncertain at the anxious thought of what lay ahead of me. School had, until then, been a sensory nightmare that was too loud, too crowded and too much of everything- a place that I could not understand, and where I was not understood . What I did not know was that over the next few months I would experience a sense of belonging for the first time ever in an environment outside of home; an environment that was not threatening , but warm, welcoming and happy, where learning was a true joy. 

I have precious memories of the years that I spent in that school, years that helped me become comfortable in my own skin. When I saw that the building was being pulled down, I realised that it also housed multiple memories, some very personal ones even, of little successes and failures that seemed like the biggest deal at that point, of friendships, of birthdays, school trips and so much more- memories that contribute to a building’s character.

Change is the only constant in life. When one visits the lanes that were once an integral part of everyday life, one hopes to find spaces that were integral to shaping one’s persona, but meets disappointment instead , for the space, along with all that it represented, is a mere memory now. Such, dear reader, is the price we pay for ‘development’!