Home Sweet Home

Do we have a choice or are we compelled to don these roles and identities with no choice? Today life is all on the move, in different cities, with different people. We assume multiple avatars within minutes and switch roles within seconds. In the wee hours we jump in the shower, we hit the road when the brightly lit neon’s engulf the city. Half awake we pull the strolley to the check-in counters at the airport. Forgetting the energetic cuckoo birds with entertaining morning sangeet we are compelled to hear the arrival and departure announcements at the airport. Blue tooth conversations, wait at airport lounges, living out of boxes, long taxi rides, claustrophobic accommodations, sleeping in hotel linens and eating in foreign cutlery have become the norm of the day.

But don’t you feel you are missing something in life? Be it a long day, a weary one or the most happening day, don’t you want to come back to the nest at the end of the day? Some things are close to our heart, some people are angels and some places are heaven. Home is a place that brings all three together. Even birds and animals come back to their nest after going around the town all day. The word house is just a framework of bricks put together by architects and civil engineers and masons, but the word home is bound by love, affection, care and life. With freedom and sense of security we are able to let our thoughts free, let our minds go for a walk while the body rest under the roof comfortably.

Be it an old couch, regular mattress, ordinary pillows, cotton sheets, plywood dining table, and tacky wall hangings there is nothing in the world that can give more comfort than one’s home. The peace that embalms the mind when you walk in the door is priceless. The security that you get from lying on your own bed, cuddling with friendly pillows and blankets is irreplaceable. Doors and locks that suffer from joint ailments are symphony to our ears. This makes me wonder why characters in Ramayana and Mahabaratha wanted to come back home.

Be it the prettiest home in a posh locality or a tattered one in the dingy corner of the city, there are fond memories and emotions associated with our homes. I remember the aroma of freshly brewed filter coffee that emanates from the kitchen and mom’s touch that turns it into tastiest coffee in the world. I remember running around the house trying to hide from our parents after the exam results. I love watching the entire world rise and fall standing in my balcony to the chirp of the birds giving the background score. The morning sunrise and the evening moon rise are standard backdrops in my mind. Watching the rain come hard from my windows while mom makes some hot pakodas and then surreptitiously venturing in the rain with the dreams of owning and sailing paper ships.

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to. ~John Ed Pearce

Whether you are a Queen, king, soldier or a pauper, we become the king of our homes. Epics like Ramayana and Mahabaratha glorify the importance of home and kingdom. Be it West or East, Home coming is an important day. Lord Rama’s home coming is celebrated as the Diwali in Northern India. With more Indians flying away to faraway land, there is a special feeling when they take the fight back home. Dirty streets, crowded market places, polluted cities are heaven. To empty nesters home coming of their kids is festive day in their calendar.

In this plastic transactional world, home is the only place we feel rested mentally and physically. The sense of belonging and security that a home brings can never be recreated. We plaster our homes with our emotions – happy and sad and light the home with relationships. We have memories associated with each room in the house and sometime when you sit down and think about it we realize there is lot of be savored and appreciated in life.

Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserve; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, and its dressing room. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

Share your thoughts and vent the nostalgia about your home, rejoice special feelings associated with your rooms and about hometown here.