The Little Thatched Hut
Yesterday, I was travelling from my home at Indirapuram to Gurgaon, just after the heavy winds and the light drizzle that brought a much-needed respite from the heat and humidity of summers. The pleasant weather was a blessing after everything we delhites have to duffer from in the name of summer.
So, my route to Gurgaon was: Indirapuram-Delhi-Gurgaon. Now, when you travel to Delhi from Indirapuram you have to cross the river Yamuna (if you can still call it a river in this part of the land). Just as you approach Yamuna on the Nizamuddin bridge, there is a stretch of about 2 kilo meters of farmlands on the erstwhile riverbed of Yamuna. I love this stretch. It has a tranquility, a serenity to offer which I covet.
There is a little thatched hut there, just before the river starts, which I have observed quite regularly. I have seen its inhabitants work around the hut in the fields and make a living. In the nearby (makeshift) market at the entrance to the commonwealth village, I have seen them sell their produce. Their’s is a life I would want to live for some period of time – without haste, without rush, without the impeding tensions of the routine, fast-paced, urbane life.
As I reached the hut yesterday, I observed the lady of the house lying in a cot with her kids sitting at the edges, under the thatched roof troubled by the light drizzle seeping in through the roof. My mind-set until that instance was: what bliss it would have been to witness the rains through this hut; in this land.
But as I observed them, sadness engulfed me. They are not there by design, but by default. And it let me to a realisation:
Things that we desire, covet, aim for in life; things that would really make us happy and satisfied with the lives that we have led; things that we want just like that thatched hut for me, are only meaningful till the time they are not our realities, but an excursion from the reality we live in. it is in their not being true that we have the ambition to convert them into reality. it is the challenge of having something that is not yet yours but desired by you. It is the carrot on the stick that keeps you running.
That hut has its importance for me because I want to escape from my reality into it for some time – not forever. It would have been bliss for me to experience the rains from that hut, but not to live their forever. That family desires a roof over their heads which would save them from the rain. For them the rain in that hut is not a bliss, nor an adventure, but only a problem they cannot resolve.
I realised that what we desire most are things we can never have. That itself is the source of the strong desire. It is the achieving of such unachievables that makes life worthwhile. However, I concede: Some dreams, should always remain dreams; else sleeping wouldn’t remain worthwhile. The Little Thatched Hut is a dream that keeps me going, not because I want that life but because I want it to be a part of my life.
