The passing of homes

Homes bring a measure of permanence to our ever-changing lives. Our favourite memories are built around 2 Ps: people and places (often homes). They release their dwellers into the world each day, and draw them back in for rest and repast, in a never ending cycle. Lives are begun, lived and ended in homes. They are our own personal space, providing shelter, privacy and an escape from the chaos outside.

Living in, or even simply being associated with, a house over several years makes it an inseparable part of one’s existence. The years of association with a particular house become a reference point for memories from a period in one’s life. I can think of two or three houses in my time that evoke strong emotions. One of them is at 14/4 Shakti Nagar, Delhi.

My first visit to that house was nineteen years ago. My classmates and I had finished school, and were in the Delhi University area, filling up admission forms for various colleges. I dropped in to my friend’s house, and received some career counselling from her school teacher mother. I recall feeling an easy comfort in that house almost instantly.

There was a constant buzz, with students of my friend’s mom flitting in and out, and a general atmosphere of sharing and community living. Sizewise, the house wasn’t much, with a little doorway flanked by two rooms, opening out into a small open courtyard with a round dining table where the family (and it seemed the constant stream of visitors) had meals and conversation.

On the other side of the courtyard was a wall, which separated my friends’ part of the house from their neighbours’ almost identical portion. The two sides were connected by a doorway that remained open at all times. Another family occupied the first floor of this two storey building – but the general impression was of one large household rather than three independent ones, with banter being traded across walls and floors.

What the house lacked in size, it more than made up for in character. The little courtyard was ringed by the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and washing area, and there was a little ladder that led up to an attic that was too small to stand upright in, where a cat and her new born litter lived. My friend’s family had moved in there in the early 70s, and that was the only house she had ever lived in.

As the years rolled on, and my friend became more than just that, I found myself making more and more frequent trips to that house, and even while I was in college in another city, I found ways to make at least an annual trip there. It was my home away from home. More than a home, it was an eco-system. It was as though the building was the focal point of many people's lives, not just those who slept under its roof. Sweeper, electrician, cook, students, adopted children, all found a place there, and were, I daresay, the better for it.

There was no shortage of people to converse with, and there was always someone around to put some tea on the boil and serve up some munchies for hours of chitchat late into the night. I got to know the house and its residents better, and was fascinated by the many stories, both bitter and joyful, that it had witnessed over the decades.

The feeling of belonging to that house was formalised, seven years after my first visit, when the lady of the house became my mother-in-law. Since then, that has been my home address in Delhi. The kids have also got to know the house, and come to love it as I do. They have climbed the ladder and discovered the attic, played cricket in the lane, and Uno/Snakes&Ladders with my mum-in-law’s students.

Forty years after my family first started renting that house, the owners have decided to sell. My mother-in-law will probably have to move out sometime later this year. I look forward to one last stay at 14/4 this October, to pay my heart’s arrears.