The Wall(s)

I suddenly got a call from an old friend today. It had me a little surprised because I wasn't expecting it. But it turned out to be a sudden, surprise call only as far as I was concerned. Because as far as she was concerned, today's call was the culmination of the painstaking ground work she had to put in place over the last couple of months. ;)

So, there she was, talking to long lost me while pushing her 18 month old down the street, I mean, pushing the stroller the baby was in. As is usual for any two people talking after a long time, the two of us were soon talking about our lives, jobs, families, this and that and what not. And just like any two people separated by such huge geographical distances, we were sort of shouting to be heard!! Anyway, we got into the talking groove pretty soon and sometime during the conversation (I think we were at the 'talking about this and that' part of the conversation) she mentioned this movie called 'Good Bye Lenin' and suggested I get my hands on the DVD. It's about the Berlin Wall coming down and how that affects the life of the central character, who has to take care of his just-out-of-coma-and-extremely-fragile mom. I hadn't even heard of it before, but now that it's been recommended, I will keep an eye open for it.

I am right now living in the middle of a construction and expansion zone also known as my house. We, my family and I, have planned on adding a new wing, raising the floor level and making a few more cosmetic changes, hoping to make the house exude a lot more grandeur than it is actually capable of. And a few walls have already been ear marked to be the ones that will most closely resemble a pile of dust and stones once the sledge-hammers are done with their job. After all of this is done, we are hoping to have a bigger, more sophisticated looking house which will hopefully be as easy to live with as it was before the changes.

Now that I have related a few details about these two disjointed events, I will tell you where this is leading to. Well actually, these two events aren’t as disjointed as they would like you to believe. My thought process jumped a few lanes, went the wrong way down a one way street and ferreted out a connection between the changes being done to my house and the Berlin Wall! They brought down one wall and it supposedly changed the lifestyle of the people of an entire nation, almost overnight. Wonder what change in world order I will be responsible for, when, as part of the planned changes to my house, I get at least four walls razed to the ground.