Up On the Roof

Rooftops in India were all important - they allowed us fresh air high above the city, they gave us view of sunsets that was incomparable and they allowed us to watch the night sky and the moon and stars. One glorious year Gail and I slept on the rooftop verandah in Puri and went to bed every night under the stars as they burned their way across the night sky.

Full moons varied in size - from the small to the huge but they were always greeted by oohs and ahs and occasionally by a howl of the werewolf variety. The roof allowed vistas of the city made beautiful by the flickering lights of Diwali, early morning sunrises and moments of contemplation of the beauty of place with the Hooghly stretching away on one side and the pollution creating a haze like a  gauzy veil over the rest.  Even pollution played its part in the magic.

Roofs played a huge role in parties; bedecked in candles and fairy lights they provided a magical setting for any number of special occasions from birthdays to Christmas. My parents once held a joint party that was the last word in abundance and decadence - nothing but imported Scotch and smoked salmon. I got very drunk on Screwdrivers (a new and exciting cocktail at the time) and much of the joy passed me by but it was certainly a time I never forgot.

Watching the sunset was a magical rooftop treat. We would sit and look towards the river and watch the huge ball of fire slowly turn the sky all shades of pink and red and yellow before it disappeared into the water for another day. We would climb up to watch the full moon as well: sometimes so big that it seemed it would fall out of the sky. It was strange to look and think of men walking there for the first time when it seemed so close that we could touch it.

The Puri and Kalimpong skies were untouched by pollution so that not only the moon but also the stars seemed close and huge. There was no astronomical touch to our viewing: we simply looked and wondered at their beauty finding constellations that probably weren't really there but that we knew the names of.

Nighttime was when the heat of the day cooled and there was nowhere better to appreciate this than the roof. The joyous thing about that was that everyone else would come out onto their roofs too and so the whole city seemed to be living on the roof reaching up into the night sky for beauty and coolness. Thus a city of many became a neighbourhood of friends sharing a common experience - up on the roof.

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