Years ago I used to live in Dreamz House. No, it was not some sort of place in my mind. It was an actual place. Our apartment complex was called Dreamz House. And we lived in 301. Today, all of a sudden, I was thinking about life in 301, Dreamz House.
In a nice locality in Hyderabad, opposite to the Income Tax dept’s building stood Dreamz House. It was a five storey building. The ground floor was sectioned off as parking and the watchman’s quarters for the apartment and also had a separate section for a local cafeteria. And I lived in Dreamz House with my roommates, on the third floor.
It was very convenient living there. Not far from work or the city. Close to everything that we needed but away from the hustle-bustle. Accessible to airport and the railway station as well. This place was home for a while.
Jammy was the one who first found Dreamz House. She then brought in Lachu. Then when Jammy moved away she found me to replace her. Ironically, Jammy and I are namesakes. We all worked in the same office, same team.
Dreamz house had a charm. Our place had a balcony facing the income tax building and I am sure they spent as much looking into our place as we did into their office. We had wild parties, sober sorrowful sessions and a lot of madness happening in that one place.
Once during a party, after lunch one of our friends ended up breaking our TV and we went without entertainment for a while. Dreamz house has seen our fear as well. There was a movie, a Tamil movie, and it wasn’t a horror movie. We saw it and couldn’t sleep. We went to our rooms, left our doors open as well as the lights in the living room on. Still no sleep! Finally, both of us ended up sleeping in the living room, after bolting the door, and making sure it couldn’t be opened.
We used to travel so much, I would be home one weekend every month just to do my laundry. The rest of time it was trips with friends or trips back to Chennai, or something else. Once when my roommate was away, I had come home in the early hours before sunrise. I switched on the lights in the living room and there was a hand on the balcony railing. I am not the screaming/swooning type, so I grabbed one of my golf clubs and cracked the door open a bit. The hand moved steadily as if one was walking on the ledge below. When I mustered up enough courage to go further, I found the hand belonged to a monkey!
On one occasion, my roommate and I stood on the balcony and watched as people went about in cars and bikes carrying sickles and sticks as if to riot, just as in the movies. This was hours after a bomb went off in the city. Another time, I walked out of our apartment and the road had a red river of waste flowing off of it thanks to bakrid.
Dreamz House was a great place in all of our lives. Our friends used to come and we would all stay awake the whole night just because we could. Late night outings were planned spur of the moment. Phone calls (and hangovers) that lasted hours took place in that house. We learned to cook and clean there. We learned more about people and prejudices. We gossiped about boyfriends, girlfriends, family, and work. We learnt that breaking things meant fixing them up as well. We learnt to dance in the rain like fools! Above all, we learnt to dream and make them come true.
Dreamz house lived up to its name for a lot of us, not just those who lived there.
Frost At Midnite 