where time stays still

"..what keeps me tied to the corner of the room...what keeps me tied..."

It has been a little over a month since I have been back in Delhi, but it seems like I never left. In some places, whether you like it or not, time moves at its own pace. Most houses in our colony have been reconstructed. Most of the friends I had here as a child have moved out. Only perhaps the park overlooking my window is still the same. Ours was one of the first houses constructed here. It is perhaps the last one standing the apartment or rather 'flat' revolution. Nothing great about the design, especially if you have the toilets at a far inaccessible corner of the house. But pockets of the house seem to have preserved memories of my childhood, something I had forgotten to look at since my return.

One morning before leaving for work it all came back to me. The tap where we used to fill our inflatable swimming pool for my brother and my Sunday recreation.


The little terrace where my grandmother and I in the Delhi winters would bide time, eating peanuts and oranges.

Simple things are to find these days in most houses - like the grills, the flooring, the grill at the front of the house, the iron stairs. These are a few pictures and I hope to take more, before this goes away. Plans to re-construct the house are under way...