But the rooftop turf war has reminded us about how much Indian cities like Kolkata were once joined together by terraces.
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No one expected the rooftops of Kolkata to suddenly become a battleground.In the last few years Kolkata has discovered terrace dining and rooftop cafes and restaurants have sprouted all over the city. Fairy lights, potted plants, perhaps a view of the Victoria Memorial lit up at night add a touch of romance to the city’s nightlife.
After a devastating fire in a hotel killed 14 people this month, the city administration decided rooftop establishments were a fire hazard and started shutting them down almost overnight. Restaurants cried foul, saying they were operating with valid permits granted by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. No matter, said the mayor and the chief minister. Staircases and rooftops are common property. They cannot be turned into commercial spaces and unauthorised structures cannot be built on them. The matter has gone to court.
Children of terraces
But the rooftop turf war has reminded us about how much Indian cities like Kolkata were once joined together by terraces. Viewed from the airplane, the city was a patchwork quilt of terraces.We had flowers on our terrace.My grandmother grew limes in a pot.
We did not think ourselves as special at the time becauseour neighbours also had terraces andwe took it for granted that life as we knew it in Kolkata was lived from rooftop to rooftop. We were the children of terraces.
Our neighbour yodeled from the window, instead of picking up the phone, when she needed to talk to my sister. As my mother chatted with the aunt on the third floor of the house next door, the aunt on the second floor would appear at her window, drawn by her voice, standing behind the half-curtain and join in the conversation. In an age before the Internet and mobile phones, this was our social media.
The terrace changed with seasons. In the monsoons it was slippery with mossand resplendent with gladioli. In winter it was the place for sunning. I hated being slathered in oil and sent out to the terrace before my bath. But I loved to see the jars of pickles people would put out in the sun. In summer on nights with power cuts we lay on the terrace and imagined stories about the ghosts who lived on the neem tree.
Romance, respite and quick exits
Terraces were also places of escape.A young woman could get away from watchful parents to lock eyes with some unsuitable boy next door, standing on his terrace stealing a few puffs from an illicit cigarette, leading to an inter-terrace romance. Old timers talk about how youth on the run during the Naxalite uprising would flee the police by jumping like a cat from terrace to terrace in North Kolkata, where the houses almost touched each other. When she was in her nineties, my aunt Chinmoyee told me that in their joint family, 20 cousins lived in one house, each family squished into a single room. The girls couldn’t go out anywhere without supervision.When we went to the roof our minds would lift, she said.They would light Chinese lanterns and watch them float away into the night while the boys flew kites. Somehow, that would make the world expand beyond the confines of their home.
But as the years went by the terraces fell into disuse. The old houses, including our own, vanished and were replaced by apartments where we live boxed-in air-conditioned lives. Our washing hangs out to dry on the balcony. The roof might technically belong to everyone, as the mayor says. But in reality it means it belongs to no one, languishing behind a rusty padlock, the forgotten part of the house.
Rooftop revival
Perhaps the current terrace tussle will remind us that terraces are indeed our common wealth. Not just as cafes and restaurants but as places where we once lived out our lives,felt the seasons pass and got to know the neighbours. It wasn’t just a lid for life that happened below it.
When I went up to the terrace in our building it looked so forlorn. A few plants wilting in their pots. An abandoned toy. No hopscotch grid drawn in chalk. The crows cawed in alarm upon seeing me. But the city still looked different from the rooftop. As the clamour of the street fell away, I looked up at the bowl of sky and the buildings straining to touch it. I saw the top of the magnolia tree on our street. The perspective shifted. It was a reminder that in a world preoccupied with exerting our rights over a patch of land, I once had a patch of sky as well and a clothesline strung across it, where my stories could hang out to dry.
I had a roof once -to dream, perchance to sleep.
The writer is the author of ‘Don’t Let Him Know’, and likes to let everyone know about his opinions, whether asked or not.
Published – May 16, 2025 10:30 am IST