Location, location, location!

Should you live in the city centre or move to the 'burbs? Both choices have their pros and cons

 

When I moved to Delhi from Calcutta a couple of decades ago, the most stressful thing I had to do was house-hunt. Landlords tended to regard single women with suspicion and journalists even more so. And it didn’t help that my rent allowance wasn’t exactly going to land me a three-bedroom flat. 

 

Unless, of course, I chose to move to Gurgaon. Here my budget would get me a beautiful flat in a condominium which had a gym, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and even a hair salon. I made the trek dutifully and was duly impressed by the apartment. But as I drove back to my office in Delhi, I knew that wild horses couldn’t drag me back to live in Gurgaon, no matter how great the facilities. I had to live in Delhi, a 20-minute ride away from all my usual haunts, even if all I could afford was a barsati flat, in which I froze to death every winter and baked to a crisp every summer.

 

So, that’s what I did. And despite all the hardships this entailed (climbing up three floors four times a day is no fun!) I have never enjoyed myself more than I did in my ever-so-humble first abode in Delhi. I have fond memories of freezing nights spent huddled around a sigri with my friends, while some kebabs sizzled away on the grill; of hosting wine and biryani evenings in my tiny drawing-cum-dining room, with the overflow of guests making themselves comfortable on my bed; of family lunches during which my minuscule kitchen would be jammed full of people trying to get their hands on the next paratha off the tawa. 

 

It was that small space that gave me the greatest joy in my life. And I knew that I wouldn’t have been half as happy in a sprawling apartment if my friends and family (not to mention, Lodi Gardens) was at least an hour’s drive away.

 

I guess it all comes down to priorities. There are some people who prioritize space over everything else and are willing to make sacrifices – like an endless commute five or six days a week – to ensure that they can enjoy it. And then, there are those like me who are willing – even happy! – to live in cramped accommodation just so that they can feel like they are close to the action – and their workplace. 

 

The world is divided between Townies and Burbies; and neither group can understand how the other lives with the choice they have made. Townies marvel at the endless hours Burbies spend stuck in traffic. Burbies don’t get how Townies cope with being restricted to just one bathroom. And so on.

 

But I guess at the end of the day, the joke’s on Townies like myself. Because, two decades on, in Delhi at least, the city has expanded so much that living in suburbia feels like being in the centre of town. So now friends of mine who bit the bullet and bought spacious homes in Gurgaon find themselves surrounded by the best that city life has to offer: trendy restaurants, luxury hotels, top-end malls, cultural hubs that host the best plays and musical performances, and swish clubs that offer everything from golf to tennis to gourmet meals.

 

In retrospect, was that barsati a mistake, after all?

Homing In

It’s a house when you move into it; you have to turn it into home

What makes a house into a home? That is a question I have grappled with over the last couple of decades, ever since I moved to Delhi and began living in an endless succession of teeny-tiny apartments. 

I still retain the fondest of memories of the first house I moved into in the capital, a small barsati in Defence Colony, where the enormous terrace was more than adequate recompense for the cramped rooms. But despite my love for my first Delhi home, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of achievement when I could finally afford a ‘proper’ flat, even if it was rented. And moving into a house of my own came with its own sense of joy – and relief (as anyone who has had to shift homes every two years when the lease is up will understand only too well).

Looking back now, I often wonder what was the moment when these living spaces went from being a ‘house’ to becoming my ‘home’? Was there a magic moment when that transformation occurred? Or was it a slow and steady process that crept up on me while I was busy doing something else? And what were the elements that went into this process?

What, to go back to my original question, makes a ‘house’ a ‘home’? 

In my case, the process begins with paint. Every house I ever moved into had its walls painted that regulation, anodyne off-white. A nothing shade, it depressed me just to look at it. So, the first thing I did was splash some colour on the walls. Dusky rose pink for the drawing room. A bright sunny yellow for the den. A brooding blue for the bar. Soothing tones of grey and lavender for the bedroom. And the odd splash of lime green to add interest to a boring corner. 

Everything looks so much better once the walls come alive with colour. The house is on its way to begin looking like a home – my home.

And then, come the books. Only once I have unpacked the many cartons containing what I rather grandiosely term my ‘library’ and arranged its contents on the shelves according to my preferred scheme (thrillers in one section, biographies in another, food books in a nook near the kitchen, and so on), do I start feeling truly at home. It’s like when you are surrounded by old friends in a new, unfamiliar place; their presence alone is enough to make you feel more at ease. That’s how books make me feel in a new house.

But that is just the starting point. The circle is only complete once I have identified a favourite corner (or a favourite chair or couch) to read in. Once I’ve found that little nook, spent a day (or two) ensconced in it, a steaming cup of coffee at hand, I know that I have found another home for myself.

Next comes the kitchen, which is – when you think about it – the heart of the house. So, the third step in turning a house into a home is to get the kitchen up and running. The spice rack must be stocked with everything from fresh haldi to Herbs de Provence, from Chinese five-spice powder to Mexican seasoning, from powdered lemon grass to sachets of bouquet garni. All my pots and pans – the cast-iron ones for cooking meat, the non-stick ones for healthy sautéing, the large one for making a cassoulet, the small one for the perfect omelet, and so on and on and on – must be within easy reach. The fridge and freezer must be heaving with cold meat, Greek yoghurt, cheese (the smellier the better), and ready-to-cook frozen aloo tikkis (don’t ask!).

Once all of this is in place, and more importantly, I have used all my pots and pans and assorted ingredients to cook a meal in that brand-new kitchen, well that’s when I begin to feel at home.

The last and final step has nothing to with the house, and everything to do with the neighbourhood. Strolling on the streets to get the lay of the land; walking in the local park every evening; buying vegetables from the subziwallah around the corner; getting a takeaway cappuccino from the nearby coffee-shop. A couple of weeks of this and the area – not just the house – begins to feel like home.

Of course, the process is different for everyone. And each one of us has his or her own criterion for deciding on what makes a house a home. A friend of mine insists that it’s only when the newly-painted walls start showing a stain or two, the kids spill some stuff on the sofa and the dog chews up one end of the carpet, does she feel that she’s finally made the home her own. 

For others, making a home means having friends and family over for an evening of food, drinks and laughs. Some feel at home only after they have an elaborate Grihapravesh puja. And then, there are those who need to generate enough clutter before they can call a place ‘home’.

But whatever the process, it invariably involves putting our own special stamp on the space we occupy. At the end of the day, like all animals, we need to mark our territory to truly make it our own.

Winter is coming

But this time around, I’m not among those celebrating its arrival

Winter has always been my favourite time of year. The moment the temperatures begin to dip in the early morning and the darkness sets in early, my heart starts to soar. Winter is coming, I tell myself excitedly. Though not in a George RR Martin way, thank God!

This year, however, the start of winter has begun to feel a little apocalyptic. I came back from a short break to find Delhi engulfed in a smog so polluted that just breathing that air, I was reliably informed, was equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day. For an asthmatic non-smoker like myself, that sounded like the kiss of death (quite literally).

So, suffice it to say, my reaction to the arrival of winter this time around had been a little bit different. Instead of celebrating the season by taking long walks in Lodhi Gardens, I have retreated to the sanctuary of my bedroom with three air-purifiers going at the same time, anxiously checking the counters to see if the PM 2.5 count was going any lower.

The only time I ventured out was to attend the wedding of one of my close friend’s daughter. And after every single function, I staggered back wheezing to my room, puffing away at my Asthalin inhaler as if my life depended on it (spoiler alert: it really does).

The good bit about all this is that I caught up on my reading, devouring Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and Ties by Domenico Starnone in double quick time (excellent books both, I could not recommend them more highly – but that’s the subject of an entirely different column). I also binge-watched the American TV series, This Is Us, weeping copiously all the way through (don’t let that put you off; it is a fabulous show). And I managed to get in a little exercise as well, working out on my cross-trainer to get my mandatory 30 active minutes every day.

So, compared to those who had to brave the streets and the dust and smoke of Delhi traffic, I didn’t do badly at all. And yet, through it all I was plagued by a vague sense of dissatisfaction, a nagging feeling of missing out on my favourite season of the year, as I sat barricaded in my room, breathing in the best air that money could buy.

My mind went back to winters past, to those halcyon days when Delhi was not a gas chamber, slowly but surely killing us all. I flashed back to my first years in the capital, when I lived in a barsati in Defence Colony, with tiny little rooms but a vast terrace that was transformed into party central the moment the cold set in. My friends and I would sit around a bonfire late into the night, drinking our poison of choice, eating whatever takeaway we had ordered in, talking, laughing, singing, and of course, in due course, dancing, the air crisp against our flushed faces. Good times.

Sunday afternoons were invariably spent in the homes of friends who were prosperous enough to have houses with gardens and backyards. The barbeque would be going, rustling up everything from kebabs to hot dogs, there would be pitchers of beer, sangria and margaritas at the ready (and mulled wine once the cold really set in), someone would be strumming on a guitar while the rest of us drifted along making desultory conversation, as we basked in the balmy sunlight. Soon the drinks would kick in and the lawn would be littered with people in varying degrees of wakefulness, until the soporific effect of the sun made most of us nod off. Siesta after fiesta, we used to call it.

Then, there were the weekend girly lunches my friends and I used to organize around this time of year at some open-air restaurant or the other. Though to be honest, these were less lunches and more gossip sessions, where a hundred reputations died a thousand deaths as we exchanged stories about the worlds of journalism, advertising and PR, which we all belonged to, our tongues suitably lubricated by lashings of Chardonnay. (Now that you mention it, I am beginning to see a pattern here…and yes, it involves alcohol!)

But my best memories are of spending lazy afternoons alone on my terrace, curled up on my wrought-iron sofa with a good book, with just a couple of oranges for company. No matter how carefully I peeled the oranges, a few drops of the juice always spilled on the book I was reading. And now, when I re-read one of them and see that tell-tale stain, it takes me back to that lovely sun-filled terrace where I spent so many happy hours breathing in that cold winter air.

It is these memories that keep me going now, as I huddle inside my air-purified room, fearing that venturing into the open will trigger yet another asthma attack. And with every puff of my inhaler I send up a prayer that one day soon, I will be able to relive these moments for real instead of just in my imagination.