The entrance

This is the door that leads to my room from the living area. If doors had voices I wonder what mine would say. That wooden carving on it is from Nepal; you cannot see the peacock in the centre. It had been lying with me for months and one day when the carpenter had come to fix up things, I asked him if he could hang this on the door. “It will fall,” he said.

And so he nailed it. I winced each time I heard the hammer. It was like someone causing hurt to the very things that would lead them to your life. I like the result, though. It looks nice when I sit on the sofa or my rocker to read or watch TV and cast a glance at the door.

Sometimes it is to make sure that my world is safe, even if there is no one around. Maybe because no one is around I fear that world.

I wonder, though, whether adding that carving has taken away from the pristine purity of the white. I don’t think so. Purity usually has a strong sense of itself; it cannot get affected so easily. When someone throws mud, it is their hands that have to pick it up and fling it. It is their need. You don’t become mud.

My door in fact looks whiter because of the contrast and it has a heart large enough to accept another, even if it did cause a bit of pain for those few moments of trying to belong. Had the door resisted and there would be wooden flakes or even a crack, the carving would have remained in some corner or perhaps on a wall. It would most certainly find a home. Eventually, all things do. But this was its destiny, for me to watch it from where I sit most times.

You might wonder what happens when I am inside the room and the door is closed. What do I see then?

One does not have to see to feel the presence of something. I know it is there and the back of the door is as much a part of my world. And when I leave it ajar I see the carving from the side and it looks different, like an ancient haveli.

It feels like a door within a door. A home within a home. A life within a life.