Window opens the outside world to those inside. If a person from outside tries to look into a window, his view is very restricted. Because of this asymmetry, window creates many interesting possibilities. Since one can see on the sly, this is the best place for voyeurs. In Rear Window (1954), James Stewart, confined to a wheelchair in plaster-cast due to a broken leg, indulges himself looking out onto a courtyard and other apartments from his rear window. There is a constant smile on his lips as he watches myriad characters: a pretty dancer, a pianist, a lonely woman, a middle-aged couple and so on. As it is a Hitchcock film, you are sure his smile will soon disappear as he sees some very unusual happenings in a flat. In Witness to Murder (1954), the lady has no voyeuristic instincts; she just happens to look out of her bedroom window and sees a woman being strangulated by a man in a flat. Being a conscientious lady, she reports the matter to the police. But the man is too clever for her and with great difficulty she finally comes out of her nightmarish experience, with the killer meeting retribution in the last scene.
Atariya, Angana, Chhat, Darwaza, Khidki
Tujhe chaand ke ‘bahaane’ dekhun ki ‘chhat’ par aa ja goriye
Today’s young generation would scarcely believe the stratagems the lovers in the earlier days had to adopt to set up a rendezvous. ‘Atariya’ was one favourite place going back to the days of Romeo and Juliet. As we have seen earlier, its vantage position at the back of the house made it an appropriate place for a date, away from the prying eyes of the parents and others. ‘Angana’, on the other hand, was a central feature of the house, and more like a public square in a private home, where the family lived out its daily life, drying papads and pickles, chillies, spices and grains, did the pounding, dehusking, grinding, and finally, communal cooking, and laying out cots for sleeping under the sky and the stars. This was also the place for ceremonies and functions. Even in such a bustling place, the intrepid lovers managed to steal a glance and more: Kabhi yaad karke gali paar kar ke chali ana hamare angana.
Songs of Angana
We have seen in the songs of atariya how its vantage location at the back of a house makes it an ideal secret meeting point for the lovers. Aangan or angana, i.e. courtyard, on the other hand, is a central feature of the house. Open to the sky, and surrounded on the four sides by verandah and living rooms, this quadrangle is the place where the family lives out its life, does all its mundane chores of daily existence, and also holds all its ceremonies and special occasions.
Songs of Atariya
With a tribute to Begum Akhtar in her Centenary Year
I had thought songs of atariya are one of the things – like lori, bidaai songs, bhajan, piano songs etc. – that have been irredeemably lost from our films. Loosely translated as ‘balcony’, atariya was the place where the heroine would go stealthily from the prying eyes of her parents, to wait for her lover, who would come on tip-toe to serenade from below, or if he was more daring, climb up through the drain pipe or a rope or bed sheet, helpfully slung down by the lady. Modesty was a virtue for women not only in India, but also in the West – Romeo too met Juliet on her atariya.