Shakespeare never envisaged a balcony in what has come to be known as the famous Balcony Scene from his play Romeo and Juliet. Balconies were not introduced in English architecture till the late Georgian period. David Garrick first included a balcony in his production of the play in 1748. Ever since, the balcony has become an enduring symbol for lovers. Oft-quoted are Romeo’s lines, “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?/It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”  Less noticed are Juliet’s lines, “Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud.” Women of genteel families rarely ventured out. The balcony became a cherished space for women, an allowed outdoor space.

Called ‘a space in between’, balconies are both public and  private, a connection with the world outside for women whose movements are restricted either because of social norms or domestic duties. The balcony has come to be seen as a feminine space. As Grace King, in her well-known novel Balcony Stories (1892), writes, “The women love to sit and talk together of summer nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments … with their sleeping children within easy hearing.” The children, too, are reassured by the sound of their mother’s voice. 

The many balconies of Karachi’s growing apartment living are hives of activity, from the hanging of washing to the lowering of baskets for the vegetable vendor below, all of which create opportunities for women to interact with neighbours across balconies and with the street below. In the film The Lunchbox (2013), Ila gets advice from the disembodied voice of ‘Aunty’ from the floor above.

Romances are also nurtured as girls and boys exchange glances across balconies. Kishore Kumar’s “Meray samnay wali khirki mein aik chand ka tukra rehta hai” [One as beautiful as the moon lives in the window across from me] is an anthem for young boys in love. Cyrano de Bergerac serenades his beloved Roxanne from the shadows below. In the film Pretty Woman, Richard Gere has to symbolically overcomes his fear of heights to climb up the fire escape with a red rose in his teeth for Julia Roberts. The balcony also provides secret entrances and exits for lovers or those who wish to escape. 

The Mushrabiya of North Africa and the Middle East, the Jaali balcony of Mughal India and the Balakhaneh of Persia allowed the women of even more conservative societies to encounter the ‘outside’ without being seen, a semblance of empowerment, allowing the woman to gaze rather than be gazed at. Balconies were an essential feature of the zenana or harem, whether looking onto the street or the courtyard and garden.

A volatile aspect of the balcony adds the possibility of disorder to the intended containment of women in sheltered spaces. Women do not only view the outside word but can be viewed from the street below.  At the extreme end of this is the association of balconies with courtesans across the world. 

Artists have returned again and again to the image of the woman in a balcony: Manet, Goya, Murillo, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Matisse, Whistler, Utamaro and a host of lesser known artists. Photographers have also captured some of their best work with balcony images not just because of the light quality, but the strong narrative it creates.

In Firdawsi’s epic poem Shahnameh, Rudaba let down her tresses to Zal as a rope for him to climb up to her. This inspired the Brothers Grimm’s tale of Rapunzel, that quintessential damsel in distress trapped in her tower, with a balcony as her only view of the world outside.   

Balconies are also symbols of isolation, loneliness and despair. Jean-Paul Sartre writes, “We turn in the unarticulated hope that a panorama is about to reveal itself, but no, all we see is a wall thirty metres away … One is always captive.” The bustle below or in another balcony can intensify that sense of isolation.

In a letter to Olga Kosakiewicz (1936) about the balconies of Naples, Sartre describes them as “neither ornaments nor luxuries. They are respiratory organs. They allow you to flee the humid warmth of the room, to live in part outdoors. They are like a little piece of the street lifted up to the second or third story.” Lorca, in his ‘Farewell’ poem writes: “If I am dying/leave the balcony open” so he can remain connected to the world outside till his last breath.

The elevation of the balcony also makes it the preferred location for people in power to address commoners. The Jharoka in medieval India was a daily opportunity for a viewing or darshan of the king and continued to be used by the Mughal emperors who also developed a mobile version — the Do-Ashiayana Manzil — for visits outside the capital. The Pope waves to his followers gathered in St Peter’s square from the papal balcony. For the British royal family, since the late 19th century, the balcony of Buckingham Palace has become the site for marking important events to be shared with their subjects — from introducing newly weds and younger royals to declaration of war and peace.

Yet, it’s the ordinary balcony in almost every city that is the most evocative, provocative, romantic and tragic architectural element.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 17th, 2017