Dull grey sky broken by the
shimmer of lightning accompanied with the roar of thunder, the streets were
empty and the only people left were in a hurry to reach home, the umbrellas
they were holding did little to save them from getting drenched – this was how
we were welcomed in Bangalore, the city where we were to begin our new life as
a couple. This was the first time I was in Bangalore; my heart was full of
mixed feelings, I was entering a new life, no parents nearby, and no friends, a
new city and just him and I. I had loved the rain on that day as there was a superstition
that rain brought with it good luck and good luck was just what we needed as we
settled down.
We moved into our new apartment
the next day – bag and baggage, no furniture yet. It was a very cute, something
that I still refer to as a doll house. For the time being, we decided to make
do with mattresses and cushions. All of it was neatly arranged into a nice
floor arrangement. We had just started our first jobs and buying anything new
meant a lot of planning and looking out for the best deals. While the floor
arrangement was good enough for us, we really had nothing for the visiting
guests. There was an immediate requirement in the living room.......we needed
something really flexible and multi-functional.
Our hunt began – we explored all
the nearby furniture stores; no, we couldn’t afford the fancy branded furniture
yet. The debate was on between him and me ...he wanted a nice sofa set to
impress the guests, ‘but how will we serve tea or dinner,’ was my defence. So
he started his hunt for a nice sofa, and I for my dining table. The deal was
that whichever comes along first will find its way to our home – the furniture always
turned out to be very expensive if the design was nice and the cheaper ones
looked just that – cheap. One evening, when we were returning from work, we
passed by a store that had just opened and ‘Voila’, there it was.....a beautiful
round table with 4 lovely chairs...it was displayed at the store window. The
base was made of a single carved wood with four arms on which rested delicate
glass. The chairs were not bulky either – this was just what we had been
looking for. We went into the store expecting an exorbitant price like our
earlier experiences, but this time we were pleasantly surprised, there was an
inaugural offer and the dining table fitted our budget perfectly.
So this was how this piece of
furniture came into our home........
Soon it became a completely
indispensible part of the house. Mornings began with tea and newspaper at the table.
Breakfast, Dinner, office-work, laptop station, a place to dump the bag and
keys on return from office, birthday celebrations, dinner with friends and
candle lit dinner romances – all of these were incomplete without our dining
table. It was our first fight, we were not speaking with each other for a
while, all communication was in monosyllables, yet the table managed to get us
to sit together even if we were quiet and when we finally made up, we held
hands and promised never to be stop speaking with each other even during our
fights and the sole witness to our promises was the table.
We had adopted our first child, Buddy
who joined our family on our first anniversary. This table became Buddy’s
favourite spot to play ‘fetch’, he scratched the legs of the table to sharpen
his paws and bit the edges when he was teething. He would sit by the table at
meal times hoping to get some bits from us. There was this one time when he
could not wait for the cake slices to be passed on to him. I had just left the
table and there was no one watching. Buddy jumped on the chair and then onto
the table. When I returned the cake slices were all gone and he sat royally on
the glass top smacking his lips.
Then came the children, it became
their friend too. They drew on it with their crayons, raced their toy cars on
the glass surface, did their homework, prepared for tests, played scrabble,
spilt milk, celebrated the first day of their summer vacation with ice-cream
treats, quarrelled with each other and cut their midnight birthday cakes.
It had spent ten years with us.
In those ten years, we had moved to a bigger place, the children had grown up,
the dining table had withstood it all, it was old now, its legs were rickety,
there were scratches on the glass and its would lose its balance every time
excess weight was placed on one side. The family was contemplating replacing
it. I realised that it was time for this table to retire, I really didn’t want
it to go, this was the first piece of furniture we had bought together and it
had a lot of memories attached to it. When we had bought it, I had thought, we
would keep it with us forever, but thanks to the modern day urbanisation that
has lead to dearth of space and reduced large houses of earlier times to modern
day pigeon-holes that they call apartments. There would be no room for our dear
old friend once a swanky new table replaced it.
Finally the day came when we had
to let it go. The children were very excited at the sight of the new, bigger
and better table. It really didn’t seem to matter to anyone, after all it was
just a piece of furniture. But both of us knew that we were parting with the first
gift we had given ourselves. The table was handed over to the store from where
the new one was picked up as a part of an exchange offer. Even while parting
the table had been a part of the final transaction for the new one – this was
its way of gifting us.
Today our only connect with the
dear table are just the pictures clicked around it....And there are lots of
them......!!
