I cannot express what it means to have fragments of my existence on record in this space and you, dear reader, witness my life through this ongoing crucial, loving pact between the two of us
In being so intimate with you about my realities, I hoped, secretly, to motivate you to do the same with others, to find a way to articulate the contours of your own complex existence using the rough templates of my own. Representation Pic
It took me a while to recognise the excerpts from my old life re-situated within a dear friend’s apartment in Delhi. At first, there was a feeling of familiarity, a sense of a shared aesthetic. Gradually, the furniture I used to own began to occupy the foreground of my consciousness. When I first moved to my apartment in Kailash Hills, an ex-colleague from my days at Zubaan Books, had taken me to Amar Colony Market, the best haunt for new and second-hand furniture in South Delhi. She drew my attention to a turquoise-painted wooden bench with tiles bearing a flower motif. We bought the piece and then picked a few other choice pieces in relation to it. Last evening, I saw this bench sitting in the basement of my friend Valay’s home. In case you don’t know, Valay Singh is the author of the book Ayodhya: City of Faith, City of Discord, which I highly recommend. And as fate would have it, he married the niece of the friend who picked the bench for me. In its immediate vicinity was the wooden table I had bought from my upstairs’ neighbour for Rs 1,000 that is still going strong. In a room above, next to a wall filled with red-framed Frida Kahlo prints stood my red bookshelf. Diagonally opposite was the aquamarine desk my partner bought me because he wanted me to have something more ergonomic, and that worked in conjunction with the fabulous swivel chair he had also bought me that now lies with my best friend.
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At my sister’s home in Mumbai, I got my tender coconut ice cream fix dished out to me in the delicate bowls I had brought back with me from my two-day trip to Singapore, when I was on the jury of a major art award. In my friend Simar’s apartment in Goa, I saw the paper umbrella I had gotten back from my trip to Tokyo that had been sponsored by the Japan Foundation. I also noticed the bookshelves in Valay’s basement were the same one I had given to my friend Supreet, who gave them to Valay after he migrated to Canada.
We arrived in Delhi hours behind schedule, thanks to fog-inspired delays. Yet, as we sat in the taxi on our way to the hotel room we booked in GK 2, I had the same eerie feeling I had when I was in Mumbai, of never having left. Because Delhi was my base for almost 10 years, I had so many departures and arrivals to and from the city. I felt like I was simply returning from one of these. Except, I had a sleeping toddler cradled under my arms. I thought again about that adage suggesting the existential impossibility of crossing the same river twice. I am not the same person I was when I left Delhi on that emergency evacuation flight to Italy. The muscles of my heart are more resilient than before. I have come such a long way, and yet, there must be so many things about me that must be consistent with the person my friends knew and loved. I suppose that is why this trip, which occasionally has undertones of pilgrimaging to meet friends, is so different, because in short spans of time I try to soak in their personhood while performing my new reality of mother.
I’ve been thinking a lot, of late, about what it means to embody a feminist life, to actively practise values of equality, equity, care, trust, justice, and love. I felt an apprehension last week about sharing so much of my personal consciousness with you, my readers. I must ask you to forgive me for worrying you might mistake all of this for self-indulgence. I still felt the need to assure you that all of this is an articulation of feminist practice… It was my friend Simar who had inspired me to come up with this title La Vie en Rosa. It was through my conversations with her that I had arrived at this way of subverting the rose-tinted suggestibility of the original, La Vie en Rose, and to add the name given to me by friends as a noun, as a prism. In being so intimate with you about my realities, I hoped, secretly, to motivate you to do the same with others, to find a way to articulate the contours of your own complex existence using the rough templates of my own.
By the time you read this, I will most likely be on my Air India flight from Delhi to Milan. I don’t know if the bureaucratic work I came here to do will yield fruit. I am resentful that in privileging that work, I couldn’t spend more time with my loved ones. I am carrying those wounds back with me. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to say goodbye to my parents, my sister, my best friends. I hope the gaps between my absences are no longer so long. I cannot tell you what it continues to mean to me to have these fragments of my life on record here. To know that you are witness to my life through this ongoing crucial, loving pact between you, my reader, and me, your humble columnist.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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