Old apartment

Here's a shot from my old apartment. I was quite fond of it. It was a small two room apartment, with a balcony that was always home to a huge honeybee hive. I tried to remove it twice, but ended up killing a lot of bees in the process, so decided to let it be.

I lived in the apartment for almost four years and six months. It was very interesting to see how I built up a collection of belongings over the years. I started with a suitcase full of clothes and a box full of books. By the end of my stay there, I had a whole house full of stuff. The picture is from the second month of my stay there, when I just had a study table, a rickety old folding chair, and a bicycle. I used to love the bike and used to commute to the office on it very often. It was 10 kms each way, but I had to stop it since Pune traffic is not biker friendly at all. One night, while coming back from the office, a car doing close to 90 kmph went by so close to me that I actually picked up some speed due to the wake. That was probably one of the last times I biked in Pune after dark.

Anyway, when I first bought the bike, I used to haul it up to my apartment every evening. Towards the end of my stay, I used to leave it downstairs, unlocked and waiting to be stolen. It never did, and I finally gave it to the watchman of my apartment complex (the one where I used to live prior to my current residence) because I was sort of sick of it getting punctured every other day.

Still, the bike served me well for all that time. So did the shoes in the shot. They were the first expensive shoes I bought with my own salary and I really used them till they were reduced to a mere protection for the top of my feet.

This shot is very evocative for me. This is a shot of my life when I was an angry young man, restless, drifting, dissatisfied with life. Life then was a complete contrast of what it is today. So was I. Time goes by so slowly, but time can do so much...