From the Archives of Memory
NEELAM MANSINGH
STRIKING FEATURES ❍ Beautifully landscaped garden ❍ Burmese wood windows and doors ❍ Antiques ❍ Colonial furniture ❍ Red oxide and brick flooring and mud walls The house comes into existence through a prism of red flowers falling from the top. An old Tibetan prayer flag flutters like an ancient unfulfilled promise. Fountains hum to themselves and heritage furniture sings an old lullaby when the owners cast their moist shadows.
In the huge garden, a tiny sunbird screams at the house dog even as the greens dwarf them both. Located in Chandigarh’s Sector 4, acclaimed theatre director Neelam Mansingh’s house, intensely perfumed by solitude, comes alive as soon as the owner decides to settle in a rocking chair. Is this home Neelam? “I guess yes. It is the place where I have a friend and an enemy. Remember, the enemy can be within too, the one that surfaces only in a familiar environment. But this place is not always familiar for it is the known that must always be strange. Only then we discover the new facets of a home, the ones that make it an extension of ourselves.”
The beautiful Burma teak on doors and windows deserved to be caressed, just like a childhood sweetheart. The lumber contrasted with the red oxide flooring gives a new dimension to the home, making it so much more inviting, so much more intimate. “All this was bought from the Chor Bazaar in Bombay. A new house was built so that it may continue to look old...,” she says. One glance at the study, where there is a home within a home. “I am in very close contact with myself here. I marvel at people who can work with their laptops in trains,” she adds.
“The drawing room with ancient artefacts are part of my childhood memories evoke my imagination. Considering the fact that I always live on the edge, home gives me the much needed buffer,” says the Padma Shree awardee, who has to her credit internationally acclaimed plays like Kitchen Katha.
“We bought half a house. My husband and I. Everything has been improvised. There was never a sense of permanence for we always lived in rented houses and government accommodations. That is why you see the red oxide and brick flooring. One generally carries the childhood along and tends to give memory a physical manifestation, no? It doesn’t really matter if those memories precipitate a smile or not,” Mansingh says. Seeing the artefacts from prePartition days, one can’t help but notice the way the region has seeped into this home. She concludes, “It is tough to get away from one’s racial consciousness. We may try to do that, but if you are sensitive, it comes back, it has to, “Neelam says. “I grew up in Amritsar and the sounds of words from that part echo in this house. I didn’t hire an interior decorator intentionally. We did everything on our own. One doesn’t consciously bring themselves into how the house looks. Never forget that your spirit has archives. You pull out so much from there, especially when you are replicating an identity of yourself, in this case, the house.”