Kamal Ghorui
All rooms are equal, but the balcony is not a room. It’s a handshake to the outdoors or, for those so inclined, a step inward, towards quiet contemplation. That’s why balconies of all persuasions (whether narrow as an alley, wide as a salesman’s smile, recessed, cantilevered, or the alluring Juliet version) used to be a prized, super saleable feature of most residential buildings, over a couple of storeys tall.
At home in Mumbai, a long, unadorned ledge – known in local patois as ‘gallery’ – running the length of my building, was the place where I could commune with the world, or hide in plain sight. But cities can’t stand still. Itching to reinvent themselves, they flick the pages of their own past. Along with those flipped pages, went my half-dreamt dreams, unfinished stories and who knows, un-lived lives.
For the new shapers of urban destinies, deemed that balconies were not pulling their weight, in terms of Return On Investment. Buyers seemed to agree. Given the option of a larger drawing room, or a roomier study, their choice was made in minutes. Where people prefer space to grace, the balcony had no place.
By erasing balconies from their master plans, trendy designers were forgetting the balcony’s role in world history. Its credentials date back to Queen Victoria who, fresh from coronation, waved to the crowds from the Buckingham Palace balcony, setting a template for her heirs. Similarly, it was on the Casa Rosada balcony that Eva Peron morphed into Evita. And, of course, the goosebumps still come on when we replay the cramped balcony of Lords, where Kapil Dev & co were crowned world beaters. But talk about these passages from history today, and you will elicit a ‘meh’. Quite literally, the balcony has no lobby!
Just as I was about to compose an epitaph to my cantilevered oasis, hope sprang afresh. Brand new buildings began sporting elevated, and eye-catching, features as part of the recipe for luxury living. Is karma behind the comeback? Or perhaps, it is love finding a way against the odds. Franz Kafka was prescient when he said, “Everything you love is very likely to be lost. But in the end, love will return in a different way.” The balcony did return, now re-branded ‘sky patio’.
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