This morning brought with it a heavy shower of unseasonal rain. Eager to catch the refreshing spray, I stuck my nose out as far as it would go but I was brought up short by the restraining grille. How I wished I was back on the balcony of my old home.
A balcony is like a smile: a structure with balconies has a jovial personality, or so I would like to believe. So unlike the secretive, snooty, aloof, smooth faced façades of buildings without.
As a passer-by, you gaze upwards at these projections and note the furniture and furnishings, plants and other miscellanea and take a guess at the kind of people who live there. More often than not, there will be a washing line swaying in the breeze. Perhaps a tricycle parked in a corner and some cricket bats too. Some will have chairs and cheerful potted plants. And if the time is right, there will be the folks at home taking the air, calling out to a vendor, keeping an eye out for returning kids and office-goers or chatting to another balcony.
To the inhabitant, the balcony is a welcome and well used extension. It is a way of stepping outdoors while staying at home: somewhere to fly paper planes and kites from and, in later years, to sun old bones, somewhere to sit with a friend and sip on drinks – the prelude to dusk and dinner, somewhere to go when the walls close in on you.
And when the street theater visits the locality, ‘balcony seats’ take on a whole new meaning and they come free and front-row too!
The older houses always had balconies and the architects who designed them obviously had the would-be residents in mind: living, breathing, dreaming people. The newer constructions absorb the balconies, thanks to space constraints and rising prices, and shut the occupants inside uncompromising, anonymous grilles. The graciousness of a balconied room seems to be a thing of the past.
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