Home Is Where The Heart Is
When my parents bought our house they never studied the home architecture systems like Vastu Shastra or Feng Shui. My parents bought the apartment after checking if it is within our budget, if the school and market are close by and also if it is a residential locality. I was just about 10 years old when we bought the house. We were very proud of our newly acquired home. My sister and I were already debating on the setup of the house decor.
A house is something which is certainly built of brick and mortar but it breathes and stays healthy because of the people living in it and the love that resides within the four walls. When you have a house the ownership of each and everything is so very important. The simple small nothings and the nooks and corners of it are something which are special for adults and for kids too. I slowly fell in love with the house because I loved the way my mother had designed the minute details in the house. No costly upholstery and tapestry were used but simple sitting arrangements and upkeep of the house was something which made it very special.
Today, the same house is being redeveloped. It has been turned to debris and after a few years it will evolve as a tower. The entire society signed for redevelopment and so it had to be brought down. I have innumerable memories attached to the house. The way I grew up with my bunch full of friends, the games that we played under those shady trees, the hide n seek places, the flowery trees where we used to hide and find that a bird has just built a nest. All these were a huge reservoir of innumerable memories. We sisters had our choices in designing the house. As a kid I always had a corner in the passage which was specially reserved for serious stuff like studying and reading. When we both got married, the biggest regret that we both had was that we were not going to stay in our house any longer.
What makes it so special? A house is an icon of your personality, it is built with some value system and needless to say the people living in it are identified with their houses. The fascination and affinity to the house is so contagious that my son too hates to hear the house is broken. He has enjoyed his early years in the house during the short stays with his grandparents. He always says ,”Mum, a house should be comfortable where you can just get peace and sleep all day long (for a six year old kid, this is the thought process of chilling out )”. I don’t know if the house will give me the same feeling of ownership or feel good factor in its new evolved form in the tower.
The house that my husband and I bought has a lot of emotional value to it. We booked the house when we were expecting our eldest son and we shifted there after a few years of his birth. It stands tall in our asset list. We chose to decorate the house with bright colours. The artefacts, the wall paintings and the temple were all made of love. People who came to visit us in our house always said – it is made and decorated with lot of love.
A house also reflects the family value system. For example, my in-laws’ house has a huge temple occupying the entire wall. It only shows that my family is pious and has a very strong binding to culture and traditions. Whenever my son visits this house, he knows that he has to stand and bend in front of all the gods which are in the temple. Every house should have a takeaway, a unique thing which fascinates the people staying in it and also which the visitors notice about it.
That’s why a house has to be a home and not just a brick and mortar structure. We as parents should be instrumental in creating that oneness among our kids. Kids and even grownups should feel the ownership and feel that there can be places which fascinate us but it is ultimately a home which we can come back to and have a good night’s sleep. That’s why I always feel every house has a story. A story straight from the heart.
After 12 years of banking experience, I chose to take a sabbatical for my kids and be an enterprising mother. I am a Bachelor in Commerce, Masters in Finance Management and done diploma in creative writing .Writing is my passion and wish to develop it further. My husband is my inspiration to all my aspirations. I am a mother of two sons, my elder being 6 yrs old and younger about 1 month old . I love travelling and writing about places visited and every thought that fascinates me. All this can be read in my blog Life Bytes.