Home
Written sometime in the first week of 2024
Among the things that give us a sense of security is a home. We like going back to it at the end of the day, and it remains one of the constants in our lives. Be it a rented place or something you own, a home, as per Merriam Webster, gives us a “familiar or usual setting: congenial environment.”
I read somewhere that to give a sense of newness to a home, it is recommended to paint it every couple of months or make some modifications time to time. At first glance, the statement makes sense, as one might get more motivated when they see something new and fresh when they come back home after work. That’s basically the endowment/IKEA effect at hand — you’d put a lot more value on it since you built it and worked on it.
But there’s a different side to this as well. When I shared this thought with a friend of mine, he mentioned that instead of newness, a “home” should always be constant and look the same since it is “home”! It made me realize that there’s always a flip side to things, no matter how much they sound okay and acceptable.
Neurologically, we process grief with its time, closeness, and proximity to the event or person. Say you had someone close to you and they passed away in a home; it is worth a shot if you consider changing your home for a while. A friend of mine actually moved to a different city after a breakup, leaving his college and his family.
For studies and work, most people move to a new city, and I think they must do that. A new city and living away from home teach you a lot. There would be a stark difference in the attitudes of two 25-year-olds, one who has spent time in a different city and one who has never left their home.
The cost of self-development is loneliness. Often in this current age of hyperproductivity filled with dopamine hits of likes and comments, it is easy to fall into this hypercapitalistic society in which needs and wants are constantly changing, and they never end, leaving you with dissatisfaction every time. In other words, I’m saying we end up prioritizing studies and, many times, stupid work, over social bonds and family and end up growing a disconnect with them. When something like this happens over a long period of time, you don’t get to know people as they’re changing their worldview and thinking. It results in cracks in relationships. I had a certain relation with my parents when I left home for college, and when I had to come back home after five years during the pandemic, things were good for me, but they were the same. I quite disliked that. There are other things to explain this — fixed vs. growth mindset and whatnot — but one must aim to be better at things. I don’t understand sometimes how people inherently don’t have this trait in them.
Imagine a prostitute who shares her home with her brothers and sisters, whom she is helping financially as she’s the second eldest cousin in the family. She says she often ends up arranging something with her clients to spend the nights outside, claiming she doesn’t like the constant chatter at the house. Additionally, that’s work which results in an income for her, and it all looks good to her family as well.
Looking at her elder sister, also a prostitute, who now has a one-year-old beautiful girl, she looks forward to coming back home thanks to the moments she’ll spend with her daughter. Even if she’s had a bad day, all of it is offsetted by the daughter, and that’s the biggest reason for her to live.
On the other hand, someone who lost a parent at home doesn’t like the emptiness with which he has to enter the home.
I have a very smart friend with whom I bond over memes and there’s no need to explain the context or the reference. With him and one more friend, we were at a scenic place to spend a Saturday painting and chilling beside a river. Considering the kind of guy he is, he was planning to step into the hellhole of government exams in India. That evening, I told him how his default personality — is the one that likes to chill out with his homies on a weekend, playing and painting beside the river, no matter how old he’d grow up. Even if he’d be 60 after multiple Sisyphean journeys, when he’d probably be a homeowner, a husband, have three kids, he’d still love to spend his time that way, and a government job and all that won’t actually suit his default personality. All of that restricts who he really is. For me, that river and sitting with homies is our home, and that day we were all at our home, talking about life, like the difficult stuff you talk about at home.
Restore to me that little spot,
With gray walls compassed round,
Where knotted grass neglected lies,
And weeds usurp the ground.
Though all around this mansion high
Invites the foot to roam,
And though its halls are fair within —
Oh, give me back my HOME!
- Anne Brontë
I recently watched the movie “Dunki”, and I found it to be okay. The movie is about a bunch of youths in Punjab from poor backgrounds who plan to go to London via the illegal route. Initially they try going there legally but they don’t have enough means.
In the movie, there’s a character whose girlfriend was married off to an NRI. The guy now takes English classes but has a hard time learning it. He gets to know she’s in an abusive relationship in London and all he wants to do is rescue her from there while her parents are not worried about her situation. He just wants to go there for one day and bring the girl home. At a point in the movie, he also says that he won’t even drink the water over there and just wants to bring back his love. Sadly, he doesn’t clear his exams and the news reaches the girl who commits suicide as soon as she hears this. The boy burns himself alive. It was a journey of homecoming; had he passed the exam and gotten the visa, things could have turned out differently.
A few of his friends take the illegal route and somehow reach London, only to be shocked by the sad reality of poor income, no identity, and no recognition of formal jobs for them since they didn’t go there the fair way. Shah Rukh from the group returns to India while the other three seek asylum, betraying Shah Rukh. After spending several years abroad, Tapsee’s character is diagnosed with a terminal illness, prompting the entire group to return to India. Mind you, these folks have worked and now settled in London but miss their homes. Tapsee would like to spend her last days in her village and meet her parents. Kind of makes sense; you reach heaven exactly from the place where you started.
The same happened with my father; after his sudden demise, we took him to his village for the last rites as soon as we could manage.
The scenes when these folks reach their villages and meet their parents are pretty touching. In all senses, this is the same place that had no opportunities for their professional lives, and they might as well have faced crooks, scamsters and toxicity in their villages. But they come back to their village like a happy child visiting Disneyland. Another homecoming journey.
If we see the homecoming journey of the friends from the movie, we can see that there’s a certain negative space of nostalgia and innocence that most people associate with their homes even if the places did not give them love and affection. It’s these moments of joy and feeling worry-free that they miss when they are out there in different cities and visit home only on certain special occasions. On these special occasions, it is in everyone’s interest to be happy and optimize for good vibes — like a phone battery that’s being charged after prolonged usage.
I had a similar story. Often, we fail to realize how much we’d have hated or disliked home if we had decided to stay there for studies or for work. Coming back home to settle is never an easy journey — the same is the stuff that Marjane, from the book Persepolis, goes through in her life when she moves to France due to the war in Iran and then coming back to her home. She goes through a series of weird and awful things over there that she had to deal with all alone. Later, only to be welcomed home with open arms by her family at home, like brides are told when they leave for a new home: “Know that whatever the hell happens you can always come back here.”
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
- Time, Pink Floyd
Bonus watch/read/listen:
- Dunki
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Time by Pink Floyd
- My article from May ‘23 ‘What’s your Sisyphus?’, I also recorded a two-hour long video on the same.
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