Tejaswinee Kelkar

“What are your insecurities about, even? I just don’t understand”, my grandmother yells at me just the same as everyday – trying to get me to open the windows and doors of my room, and let the air in. It used to happen everyday. I used to latch all the glass windows and put on thick grey curtains so that no light or fresh air ever came in. “You like to suffocate yourself”, she used to say, trying to folk-psychoanalyze me.

I was an angry teenager who didn’t want to meet anyone at home – just stick around in my room, latch the door, and sit inside the huge blue steel almirah that was in my room. I would sit under the bed for hours sometimes, until my grandmother would  ‘sweep’ me out with a broom. Or sit inside a small window with glass latch doors.

But the almirah was…