Posted on: October 4, 2008 - 3:19 am
Sopaan, New Delhi October 3/4, 2008 2:00 am
I am in New Delhi. In Sopaan. The steps. Named by my father after the steep staircase that runs in the middle of the house, right to the top floor. Sopaan, also the title of one of his books.
Gul Mohar Park. A land in the wilderness in the early 60’s. Tall wild grass grew here. No access, no roads, no electricity. An area allocated to writers and journalists by the Government then. I remember coming here to see the plot alloted to my father. It was night and the head lights of the car we travelled in were the only illumination that vaguely gave us an idea of the location and the surroundings. Jackals screamed in the eerie silence. The area was just a few hundred yards ahead of the famous AIIMS - the acclaimed Medical Institute.
Sopaan, Gul Mohar Park today the virtual center of this part of Delhi. Houses, hospitals, Schools, the famous Siri Fort Auditorium and colonies upon colonies of habitation, highways, flyovers, markets.
I built this house for my parents on this wild expanse, some years after a few successes came my way. My father had ended his term with the Rajya Sabha in Parliament and he now required a place to stay. I had got them over to Mumbai to live with me; a prevalent Indian tradition. They came over and spent time with us, but somewhere I felt they wanted a dwelling which gave them a sense of it being theirs. A permanency; something they would call their own.
A woman and wife is never comfortable unless she has built her own little nest. It is her greatest possession after she leaves her father’s home to get married, to start a new life. It has been to me, one of the supreme sacrifices that a woman makes in her life. After having spent 20-25 years of her life from birth in her home, to leave all that and settle again in another. To start calling her new environment her home now. To begin again. Tough. My admiration therefore has always been with them. It is most painful then for me to learn of separation and divorce. Of broken homes and families. Most painful.
The wife no matter how or what the circumstances, will guard and nurture this nest as only she can. She will dress it and conduct it and manage it and run it, like no other. And no other will be allowed to run it either. No matter how old or invalid they may become, they will always still have the final say in all management of her little nest. You dare not question or suggest or pass judgement. Husbands ! you are warned. Stay away from this if you wish for harmony.. or your dinner !!
Sopaan.
My father got his little corner for his writing. He finished the last volume of his autobiography here. His books and his desk still remain in just the way he had left it - his personal artifacts, papers and writing material, all unmoved and still. I rest now in the bedroom where he slept and where he suffered his illness soon after completing his last chapter - a premonition he had announced when he had started his fourth volume. Jaya, now the keeper of this nest and one who spends the maximum time here due to her Parliament activities, has leveled out a few corners and polished in some decorative changes. They are warm and welcoming and elegant. She now busies herself in pulling out the old records and details of the family. Papers, old letters, bits of Allahabad and Delhi and Nainital and Kolkata. Manuscripts and sketches and paintings lying ignored and begging for restoration. All slowly but surely finding their way on walls and rooms, both here and in Mumbai. Some being converted to discs, some being punched in to computers. A most valuable and painstaking task. All for posterity.
Sopaan.
It has been a haven of togetherness. The entire family ten twelve of the immediate, living here together and filling it with the laughter and the noise so associated with joint living. It has been the location for some harshness as well. My hand blew up here one Diwali and the fearful sight of my Mother running up the staircase to our bedroom and breathlessly breaking the news to us of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination, is still so vivid in memory. And the excitement one new year’s eve as we announced Shweta’s engagement to Nikhil.
And today I am here to witness my grandchildren Navya- Naveli and Agastya perform in a concert put together by their mother, the proceeds of which shall go for the care of children afflicted by cancer.
Aishwarya left in the morning from Mumbai to Kolkata to present an event and has come in here late. Abhishek arrives in the morning. Sopaan shall buzz again with new faces in the nest that my Mother built and maintained.
I stand in front of the photographs of us - Ma, Dad, my brother and myself. Taken when the house was just made ready. Jaya has thoughtfully decorated a wall, reminding us of time gone by. They are interspersed with members of family that joined in later. Niky and the Nanda’s, the grandchildren and now Aishwarya. Abhishek two years old. Abhishek now strapping 6′3″. Amitabh young with wierd hairstyle. Amitabh older with Amitabh hairstyle. Amitabh even more with white fungus on chin. Jaya in NCC uniform. Jaya in a crowd of well posed Parliamentarians…
Life will remain in the end, but a photograph on the wall..
My love for you and more -
Amitabh Bachchan
