Sanctuary...

Photo by - Endevourme

When i was a kid, we used to stay near main market in pune, the place is called mandai.It is a vegetable market but not a crowded one. Less stalls, less people.The old mandai has a marvellous architecture. It is built in stone and from the top it looks like a giant star fish.It opens from all the arms of the starfish, so you can enter inside from one arm and come out from another.This place has a particular smell. The atmosphere of being old.The pavements too are in stone, polished and smoothened due to people walking over them for years.The place has a cool feeling. Below the stalls there are small storages, if you peek into them, you cant see anything but you can feel the raw, damp smell of wood, vegetables and fruits. This I used to feel like a very secure place to hide.Dark place, where nobody can come and catch you.Often you can see pigions flying here, around glass windows and wooden pillars.Center of the building there are snacks shops, you can see loads of stallkeepers standing there and eating.I too used to go there and buy samosas, especially on sundays. Right at the centre there is a huge empty place,where all arms of starfish come together. The ceiling is quite high and you can see the blackening and dust saturated there over years, and big dense spider webs everywhere. But you can feel a quiteness and moreover, a huge stability,firmness of this rigid stone structure. I often used to come here for playing, with friends. It is here i used to dream of becoming a bowler, a doctor and much more which i could never become. Over the years the place has seen a lot. Ordinary people, a common man. His dreams, his hopes, his ambitions and his continuous struggle for living.I too grew up. I too joined this marathon of people. I may call this persuing my dreams,or maybe just another struggle for living.Now a days i dont find mandais, rather i go to fancy shopping malls. Now i get mixed in the crowds there but i cant relate to them. And i feel those people cant relate even to themselves. A crowd of empty people. But once in a while i do want to stop running and again sometime go the the place.Touch the stone and feel its smoothness. Again i want to see the dark stone ceiling. When i was a kid i had too look up, and even now too i have to look up.For this stone structure which has stood the test of time, I was small and will always remain small.It is a sanctuary of my memories keeping the warm afternoons of my childhood alive.