A home of my own

It's what I always wanted -- except I didn't know it came with a catch

Careful what you wish for, they say. And they may well have a point. Ever since I can remember, my ambition was to grow up and earn enough money to have a house of my own. A house that was mine alone; a house in which I didn’t have to adhere to anyone else’s rules; a house where I could come and go as I pleased, without anyone asking me a dozen questions.

 

Well, gentle reader, I achieved that ambition when I moved to Delhi and my then-employers very kindly rented a lovely flat for me. At the beginning, there was no containing my excitement. I set up the kitchen just as I wanted, I chose furniture according to my taste (and budget), I devised different colour schemes for different rooms, and I spent more than I could afford on a fancy mattress to get a good night’s sleep. 

 

But as the charm and novelty of the new address wore off, my new responsibilities as a homeowner (or rentor, if you want to get pedantic about it) began to jar. It wasn’t the day-to-day cleaning and dusting that weighed upon me – mostly because I had help with that. It was the other admin stuff: getting the ACs serviced twice a year; making sure all the utility bills were paid on time; calling in the electrician and plumber to deal with bust bulbs and choked drains; dealing with damp patches after every monsoon; the list went on and on.

 

It wasn’t long before I realized that life as a grown-up meant just one thing: an endless round of chores – and not all of them house-related either. It’s been a few decades since I moved into my new home in Delhi to live on my own, and since then I have shifted house more times than I care to remember, but the responsibilities have only grown with every passing year. 

 

There is the normal everyday stuff: thinking about what to cook for every meal; shopping for the ingredients; meal prep and the actual cooking; making sure laundry is done; keeping your plants well-tended; and so on.  

 

And then, there is the big stuff that everyone has to deal with. Making sure that you book yourself in for a medical check-up every year (and renew your medical insurance); that your young children have had all the shots they need; regularly monitoring your parents’ health to make sure that they have medical support as they age. 

In fact, as your children grow and your parents age, it can often feel like you’re being squeezed from both ends (no wonder people in this situation are called the sandwich generation). Teenage children need more supervision and care than toddlers to ensure that they don’t go off the rails. And it doesn’t help that around this time, the tables turn in such a way that you end up parenting your own mum and dad as they cope with the infirmities of growing old. 

 

And it is then that you look back on the halcyon days of your youth when your mom and dad were everything from your alarm clock, your chauffeur, your cook, and your emotional support. And you realize that growing up is not all that it is cracked up to be.

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.