His window-side refuge.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Theoretically, it is such a cool idea to stay home 24/7.

Practically, it is so difficult.

But Nilabh, it seems, knows his way around to make the best out of the situation.

A sales professional, and a poet, in his early 40s, he lives with wife, Jyotsna, in a spacious 14th floor apartment in Gurgaon’s Sector 84 in the Greater Delhi Region. (It’s technically the 13th floor!) This afternoon Nilabh discolses his favorite spot in the house, where he manages to sit for hours without interruptions, with books and drinks.

“Every two years I take a sabbatical from work for six months, so I find it easy than many others to stay within the home,” he says, talking on WhatsApp video from the isolation of his flat— the pictures are taken through the phone screen that connects him to The Delhi Walla.

With his wife holding his phone for him, Nilabh points out the necessary elements that make up his secluded paradise.

First, is the recliner that he got two years ago. “Here I watch YouTube videos (on TV), think and conceptualise my poetry, and read books.”

Nilabh points to paperbacks by poets Nida Fazli, Krishna Bihari Noor, Dushyant Kumar and John Aliya. (And there’s also “In Search of Excellence” by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.) But his most beloved recliner-side book has to be Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. “His outlook gives me peace of mind and clarity… the book is like a mirror to me, it gives me a lot of reinforcements to my thoughts.”

Now, the gentleman shows a bottle in which the trapped daylight, streaming in from the window, has turned the liquid into molten gold. “Brandy is very flexible,” he declares. “You can drink it at night, in the day… with warm water, with cold water…”

Finally, there’s the window. It looks to more apartment complexes, and to the sky, and to what Nilabh calls “Kuch Nahi” (nothing), which “gives me the luxury of being hundred percent Nilabh.”

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