A 21 st century doorJan 10, 2007

Sumit Roy, Kolkata, India

Explore life’s corridors. Real doors. Metaphorical doors.

This column is not about Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. Though the inspiration that gave one of rock music’s classic bands their name is also the source of inspiration for this column.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.” William Blake

Everyone has a door they fear. Or a door they love. Write and tell us about it. If it’s worth visiting, take us there. If you dare not open it, let us help you conquer your fears. Share your world, your doors of perception.

It’s amazing how much you can tell from a person’s front door.

Some of us want our anonymity. Others want to shout out who we are, yet hide ourselves from the outside world.

Some doors say welcome without ever having to use the words. Others shut the world out firmly believing that anyone who might want to know about the lonely lives inside must be a salesman if not a serial killer.

What does your front door say about you?

In Hong Kong I saw a door that looked and sounded like the inmates were imprisoned for life. There was no way that you could get in or out unless you knew the electronic code and held a pass key to the multi-levered tumblers built into a solid steel door. Clang! Once you were in, you stayed in. The unfortunate thing was that the inmates were a double-income family of law-abiding citizens who lived a matchbox life in a matchbox flat in a matchbox apartment building in upmarket Kowloon. The chances of getting mugged in one’s own high-rise building had made them the prisoners, not the teenagers who prowled their corridors for their next fix.

“Cancel my subscription to the resurrection.

I got some friends inside”!

In Southampton’s countryside I saw the front door of an elderly couple who ran a mill powered by a babbling brook. They offered an extra room they had for bed and breakfast, which is how I got to know them. I gathered that they had never ever locked their front door. Either they had no one to fear or the animals that were their extended family alerted all concerned that friend or foe had arrived, well before the stranger had chance to get to their front door. The door itself was mostly stained glass framed in a welcoming shower of bougainvillea. We felt home even before we stepped in their door.

I guess technically the gate at the edge of their property was their front door. But clearly that gate had never seen a lock. Just a metal clasp that was friendly enough to humans but deterrent enough for their livestock.

Fortunately, billions of humans, who do not live in cities, know the pleasures of keeping a home that welcomes other humans. Attitudinally, their doors are always open to their extended family. Other humans. You’ll find this in most villages across the world.

Unfortunately, the billions who have cooped themselves up in cities and towns can’t feel safe without locking themselves in. An in-built defence mechanism shuts the door on their fellow humans. At home, at work.

“People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted
Streets are uneven when you’re down

When you’re strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange
No one remembers your name”

Hi there, stranger. My name’s Sumit Roy. What’s yours?

I live a keyboard away in Kolkata, India. And my virtual door, in this, our global village, is open.

Come on in, fellow human beam… Tell us about your life and the doors you’ve explored. Or even the ones you dare not open.