The blue door

ANYONE who has grown up in the hills would be familiar with the compulsive need to take shortcuts. In my school days, it was cool to find the shortest shortcut possible. So much so, that teachers had to be posted on duty at the known shortcut points so that students would not flout rules during cross-country races. 

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This need for shortcuts is so ingrained in us that even if the shortcut in question is steeper and more challenging, it is still preferred. 

In some cases, what appears to be a shorter route is actually longer, but the visual appeal of using the road less travelled far exceeds the sense of logistics. Many times, the shortcuts are accompanied by caterpillar rashes, ‘bichhu butti’ and other creepy crawlies that lurk in the bushes. But one just has to be ‘man’ enough to face them. After all, the tarred roads are meant for lesser mortals.

This need for shortcuts stays with us long after we leave school. My fahter built the house of his dreams in the hills. It was a labour of love and we would hear endless stories of how the wood was sourced, the flooring designed, etc. A lot of attention was paid to the portico. A lover of all things blue and white, he decided to paint the main door blue. It took months and layers of paint to zero in on the ‘mera wala blue’. This too happened by sheer chance, when my little toddler was found prancing around in a blue T-shirt of just the right shade. Around this door is an entrance porch with the most beautiful trellis detail. It is an entrance out of a picture book.  

But we are an incorrigible lot. Instead of using the main entrance, we would prefer to use the shortcut, which meant that we entered the house from the dining room, giving a miss to the beautiful blue door. My father tried in vain to convince us to use the main entrance, but years of conditioning could not be undone. In a desperate attempt to stop us, he even had a fence put up around the lawn. Little did he know that the streak of stubborness ran as much in our veins as it did in his. To his utter disppointment, he found us alight from our cars and jump over the fence! Finally, he gave up.

What was heartwrenching was that when he made his last journey from his beloved home to the hospital, we had to carry him from the shortcut to the ambulance. He too could not use the beautiful blue door, which stands as a testament to a man who had a great eye for detail and I am sure it awaits his return to ring the bell and annnounce his arrival. I wish I had used the blue door more often; it would have made him so happy.