The need for a private space

Private space! What does it mean? Why do we need it so much in today's time? Was its need the same even in previous generations? I do not know.

Me and many people i know of my generation feel a need to that space, which is just reserved for oneself. That one little space, that one little moment where one is just with oneself, where one can fully live an emotion or a thought. A space where not even we ask ourselves why are we thinking a thought or why are we feeling an emotion. It's a space where one faces oneself in the mirror truely. That is probably what this private space gives one.

So where do i get this space? I buy my own house away from my parents, to enjoy this space. Or i have my own room in the family house, which gives me this space. If not even a room, i at least have a few private moments in bathroom, which are just for me exclusively. Every one in my house finds whatever little private space available. I guess everyone needs it as badly as i do.

But there is one person in the house who doesn't have this space. She is Pooja, who has come from Bihar state to help us out in our work. She has traveled almost a thousand miles to wash our plates, to clean our floor, to wash our clothes, to make our beds every morning. And she is learning to do all that slowly. She is learning how i like my food being served, how i like to see my room. She is learning the way i like the sheet tucked in the bed, how i like to see the pillow placed on the bed. She is trying to learn the reason behind why eat different rice, while for her its different. She is trying to learn the meaning of what i mean by the word 'hygiene'. She is learning all that with full details and specifications.

And in between all this learning and making mistakes, she misses her family back in Bihar. She misses the open fields in her village. The idea of concrete walls all around is completely new to her. And so while she misses all that, she might also feel the need of that much valued private space. In my house, she finds that space either in one corner of the kitchen, or in the small balcony in my house or on the stairs in the building in afternoon when no one uses them. These are the places where she sits unnoticed, quietly trying to live the emotions and thoughts which she controls all day.