how the malls almost stole christmas

you're driving down a busy bombay street and you turn off into this walled compound. suddenly you're disoriented. this could be anywhere. there's a big maidan in front of you, and bordering it are these small cottages. you cross the maidan and navigate the small lanes to go to a particular cottage. thing is, it's hard to find, unless you keep your eyes peeled for a couple of enfields outside and the sound of singing from inside.

but once you do, it's like coming home.

this is anoop's house. (who's anoop? you might ask. well, i don't know him very well, so we'll leave that for another post. but i visit often, like the proverbial bin bulaye mehman, and quitely orgasm at the though of living in that space)

back to the house. it's a small cottage. with a garden out front and a courtyard at the back. perfect for dinners/lunches/breakfasts or whatever meal you want to make a ceremony of. the bricks are whitewashed with a charmingly rustic uneveness to it that makes you want to run your fingers through it. the false ceiling has skylights. and the house itself has soul.

a friend who once lived in bombay, had a picture window in his living room, with a panoramic view of the sea. he once described this view to me as a "chadi utarao view" (claimed it helped him score like crazy). i never did see that view so i can't comment, but anoops house, IS a chadi utarao house. it has a raw sensual feel to it. the red brick walkway to his front door, the jharokas set into the wall in the courtyard, the wire mesh wall of the bedroom that brings the outside in. it's a house that makes you want to cuss (so you can't just exclaim "it's cool" you'd want to say "behenchod, it's cool") because it's so wonderful. not in a carefully crafted beige palace kind of way. rather in a carelessly lived in kind of way.

i almost missed christmas this year. it's easy to, when the only evidence of christmas is found in shopping malls and you're too busy working to bring in into your house.

then i found my way to anoop's. in a not-planned-move-from-one-party-to-another way. his courtyard had a christmas tree. with tinsel (don't you just love tinsel? it's fun and it's elegant. it's also twisty and fuzzy. silver tinsel that looks blue by candlelight). and peppermint canes. and shiny red balls. but that wasn't it. what clinched the deal for me was the mood. mellow and yellow. with drunken singing. and people cloaked in their own thoughts in flickering candlelight. it was like everyone existed in a plane thats a perfect balance between their own private space and the space they share with a bunch of good people.

it was christmas. in a perfect house. and i didn't have to go to a mall to find it.

i guess, christmas magic doesn't just belong to the movies.