More Space!

A two- dimensional spacial existence: home and office, domestic space and official work- place is easy to conceptualize. Public and private spaces are the third and fourth dimensions of space. Restaurants and coffee shops, clubs, pubs and discos, bus stops, train compartments, airport terminals, auditoria, museums, gardens and parks, playgrounds, gyms and jogging tracks, theatres and opera houses, kitty parties, shopping malls, multiplexes, libraries and book shops, walking plazas and streets – we are all familiar with third space but how many have access to truly private space?

Amrita Pritam has talked of a fourth room in the house that women long for. They are at home all the time and have a limited brush with third space occasionally. At home too, they are mostly confined to kitchen. The drawing room and bedroom have their set functions. So what they covet is their own private space – the fourth room in the house, a dream most are unlikely to realize.

Automobiles are so popular because, apart from convenience and flagging status, they give us a tiny bubble of private space on the crowded roads.

Third space is always so crowded in India that having access to second space, howmuchever cramped and non- private, is a blessing. The daily commute from a tiny 1 bhk flat to a tiny, crowed office in an overflowing train or bus is still a stress buster. Taking up your assigned spot behind a crowded counter, at an assembly line or fast moving conveyor belt, at a long office table facing a supervisor or on a classroom platform to herald a new working day is enough to set adrenalin soaring. How zealously we guard our work space! Executives fight over its dimensions. A little more, a little closer to the boss means you are moving up in the hierarchy, make no mistake. Our table space too, is sacred. We put glass over the table top and insert photos, calendar, and pictures in between to give it individuality.

Technological advance is currently putting paid to the pursuit of individual second space. An office need have no real time existence. A wi fi connection, a laptop and a mobile phone and a virtual office space is instantly created anywhere. This collapsing of second and third spaces is surely convenient and makes for efficiency but it also means lack of privacy.

Recently it was reported that American parents are turning their attention to creating a special, hanging out space, equipped with home gym and theatre to keep their teenage children at home and prevent them from loitering about. This, in addition to large space and separate rooms for each family member and for every purpose. Farm houses as weekend retreats have caught on amongst our rich too. The idea is to make the first space so attractive that exposure to third space is minimized. Will it work? Lin Yutang has said,” Sure, I love my family. I want them upstairs when I am downstairs and downstairs when I am upstairs.” The desire to be with one’s peers is likely to eclipse everything else.

Come to think of it, privilege essentially means access to private space. Own room at home, a separate cabin at office, an old fashioned box in opera house, a favourite table reserved at a restaurant mean that you matter.

I started working early and before I understood its importance, had my own table and chair on a long table with two arms on either side in a large office. Own table is what I missed most after quitting the job. The second job offered no possibility of individual space. At tea time, we sat around two long tables that had been joined together and work meant taking turns at visiting classrooms for lectures. Tables at college library were few and were all booked if one reached late. So I joined three outside libraries to create temporary second space. Of course, there were many others before me. Though one could not reserve space in a library, readers would regularly put up “Do not disturb the books” message and achieve the same result. Once a month, a library staff member would clean out all these accumulated books and then one could breathe easy, at least for a short while.

At last, after many years, the college allotted me a separate room. I share it with a colleague who fortunately, is not alive to its possibilities. The room is at an inconvenient point on the top storey of the building. Three steep flights of stairs and then a narrow, rather make- shift staircase must be climbed before reaching it but they only serve to strengthen my privacy. I have fitted swing doors in the door frame but mostly it is so windy that I have to close the door and then I am alone! Books, magazines, paintings, collages, photographs, charts, bulletin boards with clippings and other knick knacks adorn my room. I read, I write or just look out of the window gazing at the trees beyond. I am completely at peace and manage to get a lot of work done.

 I am happy to spend time here. The space has magic for me. I could call it my studio. The place has become famous in college. Once a student entered the room and while I was busy with others, he  looked at the paintings, photos etc. as if he were in a museum and left quietly!

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