A House - A Chapter

 2004

I came home from work to find my parents waiting for me. They had just returned from Assam, having met my prospective parents-in-law.

They bore a solemn expression and instructed me to sit down for an early dinner. 'Cos they had some important news to share.

'Do you remember our ancestral place in Dumka, Jharkhand?' Baba posed a question.

I nodded. How can I ever forget!

'That's how the place is where your in-laws live.'

Ma took over. 'Dark and damp. Tiny yellow lights in every house. Houses with a sloping roof. After dark, everything goes silent except for the crickets and the frogs. There are frequent power cuts draining the inverter. After a while it's completely dark except for the dim lights emitted by the hurricane. People wake up with the sun and call it a night early.'

'Is it a proper town, Ma?'

'Not really. It's what we say Mofosshol in Bangla. Somewhere between a village and a town. The suburbs.'

I had sat there in deep thought.

'It's ok, babu. You don't have to say yes!' Baba had assured me.

They did not realise that I was sitting there trying to picture what they had just described to me. It was just what I wanted.

It did not take me long to say a yes and get the wedding preparations rolling.

Much much later I had told my parents that this is what I had been yearning for. A picturesque setting. A lovely little house and the usual sights of the countryside. And a peaceful stay.

I visited the house last in 2019. After that Covid changed our circumstances and the house was put up for sale. A call came last month informing us that the buyer had demolished the house. A highrise was coming up on the plot.

With the house ended a chapter in my life. 

1979

I was born in Asansol. Underweight and painfully thin, I suffered a host of medical issues. It was the month of January and extremely cold for a newborn baby. Every morning, my maternal grandmother gave me an oil massage and kept me out in the sun. A huge German Shepherd would stand guard. She would not even allow a fly near me. Her name was Begum. I grew up and gained strength. But Begum left soon after. The huge house was full of memories of her. Of the wonderful times, I spent with my cousins there. Of the trees, I had planted there.

The house was sold off in 2010. My grandparents passed away in close succession. The house was demolished in 2012. I was left with memories of the house and of my grandparents.

2021, August

I had gone home to pack off our stuff and vacate the premises. Our share of the ancestral house had been sold. As the car honked downstairs, I took one last tour reliving the moments I had spent there.

The couch where my paternal grandmother would sit and brush her thick, white mane every evening. The hanging balcony where I would stay up and read books. The huge terrace where I would sit for hours watching the neighbourhood lull itself into a quiet night.

A teary, silent farewell was all I could manage.

The chapters were over. It was time to move on.

Moving on has never been an issue for me. I have moved almost eighteen times. My children have changed schools eleven times.

Every time we settled down, made friends, fell in love with a nook and a corner, we would be rudely awakened. Transfer orders. Time to move.

A frenzied packing. An emotional farewell and off we moved to another destination to write another chapter.

Each one of these chapters has made me what I am today.

A one-room tenement in Delhi for my first job was a revelation. All I had wanted was a balcony and I paid a befitting amount for that as rent. I cut down on other heads only to enjoy the balcony after the day's work, far away from home. The balcony was my friend, my antidote to homesickness.

Our first home, after marriage, was a nice apartment in the heart of the city. A corner in my bedroom overlooked a bright green patch outside. The newly married girl would spend many a morning sitting in that corner, shedding a tear and watching the buds bloom. You see that corner was my only hope!

A window in my house in Rourkela was special. That was where, years ago, a father had killed his son. The neighbours believed that the house was haunted and had been lying vacant for years till we moved in. Every evening I would light a Diya and pray for the suffering soul. That corner of the house still remains with me, in my memories.

The house in Ranchi had a beautiful corner which I used as a Puja room. Most evenings we would sit there and sing devotional songs.

Every house has been special to us. We lived in them, explored every part of them and built our memories around them. Be it a corner, a shelf, a window or a balcony, they are precious and are a reminder of all the lessons I have learnt in that particular chapter.

Moving into a house, adapting it to suit our needs and adapting ourselves to suit it is a learning lesson. As we start living there, the house is no longer a non-living thing. But a living entity that breathes and vibrates through us! And only after we have moved from the house, we realise that we will always carry its vibes with us. That's a lesson I have learnt.

In picture: My ancestral house in Burdwan, West Bengal.