Oct 4, 2020
From the Walls
There are frilly skirts of all lengths and trousers that sit at different parts of the body from the chest to the waist. There are shirts that have sleeves till the wrists and also those that don’t have any. We don’t understand how clothing works in the world of humans but we know it is not like our colours we use to define our forms on the walls. We mix our colours and we don’t place the identical ones together, or next to each other. But, people are weird. They call this place a mess, but all we see is structure. Of different groups, but the same people. Same people, same spots, same orders. Where is the mess?
A long time ago, to be precise, six years ago, everything was well for us, we were disembodied spirits roaming in plot no 2 of Rajiv Gandhi Education city. We were vibing in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as the Grand Trunk Road in Sonipat. We were what humans would have considered shapeless, colourless blobs who observed and sometimes mingled with the people around them. And then there was a sudden influx of people who came to work and started building an institution that will remain nameless.
The humans who’d built these brightly coloured walls were soon replaced by new and cacophonous ones that strutted through the corridors. We are confused. Where did these new bodies come from? Why are they decorated different from the ones that do the physical work? Why are they here if differently dressed people built the building? Why are there some people who wear the same thing every day and do the same work every day? Why do these two groups not mix? Why are there so many groups between them?
When the new people came, we could no longer be floating blobs of air. We had to take form, otherwise, we wouldn’t exist. Would these people exist if they didn’t take forms according to their groups? Are they like their colours? Then who decides what colour and what clothes which humans wear? WHERE DO THE CLOTHES COME FROM? Why do they change every day but also are similar?
Their behaviours are so different too! We sometimes wonder if it depends on the clothing, but then…why wouldn’t anyone choose the best kind? When we chose forms, we knew all the forms were equally valuable and all the colours would be equally important. But, with these clothes…it’s like there are rules and none of them make sense. So much like everything else, but not really?
Anyway, we just came to the walls. It’s better to watch the people and their choices from the sidelines than be a part of something we don’t understand. I mean it’s not like people who are a part of it are trying to understand it, right? So, every night at the stroke of four a.m., when the last living entity in the mess has finally deposited their plate and the last peri-peri fry has been consumed, we, the paintings on the mess wall awake to the lingering smell of teenage bodies that haven’t showered for weeks and mayonnaise.
-Written by Kshitija Chavan
-Edited by Vibha Balaji
