My Tranquil Locus #NuptialNarratives

It’s been a long day. After successful trials of biryani and mango ice cream which called for endless hours of the kitchen, I finally got to my safe haven. Don’t get me wrong, the kitchen isn’t an unsafe place but you know how everyone has a corner in the house where they can let out a sigh while cornering feelings that have been acting troublesome.

It’s been more than a year we have been dealing with the pandemic. By now, almost everyone has spent a considerable amount of time at their respective places of residence. With social media being flooded with home makeovers, DIY corners, it gets difficult not to keep up.

Getting a work table wasn’t much of a tell-tale affair, but finding my husband the right work chair surely was.  After scores of shops visited, we selected the one from the first shop! It’s needless to say that this corner gradually became his favourite corner of the house and he now works more hours than before! ☹ And yes, I can’t complain since I was the mastermind behind the whole setup, plus wives don’t accept they are guilty! 😛

So, getting back to having favourite corner(s) in the house; I was very sceptical about it like every new bride is after marriage. Earlier, I had been living away from my maternal home for about a decade. Having lived with and without roommates, in Mumbai and Delhi both, leaves you with various experiences of the house. In such situations, there isn’t a corner that becomes your favourite, it’s just your room that you have for yourself. So getting married and moving into a new house with your husband gave me as a bride a different kind of thrill. I wouldn’t say I was spared by it.

Soon after our wedding, the 2020 lockdown was imposed and we became homebound. All our exciting plans on indefinite hold. As the pandemic grew severe, feelings of a newly married were soon mixed with the feelings of helplessness. As we know, in Indian families, a lot of expectations come along with getting married, so having a place where I could shed all those and be myself became all the more important. As the newness of things sometimes overwhelmed me, I looked for someone to pour my heart out and craved for a corner that I could call mine, which reminded me who I was before I became who I am. In the whirlwind of emotions, I needed solace.

Inevitably, my room’s cosy balcony became my refuge. I would discreetly escape to my balcony when things overwhelmed me and it would just calm me instantly. There would be times when I would just stand there looking at the sky or the distant skyscrapers, dreaming about the future, and the time would gently slip by. Though this corner still doesn’t have my imprints, it still stands at number one places to be when I just want to be with myself. Undoubtedly the view from here is exquisite. Sometimes, I sit there to read or write just like I am doing now (having finished the household chores) but mostly it’s my morning tea place, calming me before I march ahead to the path of a working wife trying to have it all.

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‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’