The Homes We Live In

In one corner of this huge universe we have erected a structure, some with mud, some with bamboo sticks and some with concrete. We have put tiny windows so that the light and air can pass through. And there is a door through which we can enter in. Enter in a place, which we lovingly called our home. Some live in small huts, some in luxurious apartments, some in normal houses, some in spacious villas and a few in huge palaces. For the residents, there is a name to those structures - home. A place of shelter. A place to relax. A place to return after day's work. A place in this huge world which they call their own. People may spend their childhood in one home and youth in another and old age in another, which may as well be called an old age home. To others it’s a structure, just an erection. But to the owner it is no less than a living being, like a fond pet. There develops an attachment with that home. That invisible tie, that unspoken bond. We decorate our homes, during festivals, during Diwali, during Christmas. We paint them. We repair them. We treat them as one of our own.

Old people talk of home they lived in, full of trees and people around. They may not exist physically now; they exist only in their memories. Then there are the so-called people whom the world has labelled as refugees. They have been forced to abandon their homes in search of some unknown and ruthless dark world somewhere else. They have been from Bangladesh or Pakistan 70 years back or they have may been from Syria and Iraq today. We, who are comfortably placed in our homes, will never understand their pain. The pain to abandon the homes; the pain to be uprooted; the pain to learn that they don’t own any piece of land in this entire universe.

And then there are the homeless. Someone who never found a place, that we commonly visulise as home. They sleep on the footpaths and have families and grow under the flyovers and station platforms. But I am sure even that piece of unaccounted place is what they call their homes. For, I have seen them sweeping the ground under the flyovers where they have “occupied” along with their family. Their homes seem less protected than ours. And yet in protected homes, some people can’t sleep at night for fear or anxiety. Jobs, relationships, money – there can be so many things to make people feel unprotected and vulnerable in their protected homes.  At dead of night I have seen lights are on in some rooms or a lone person walking aimlessly on the road or someone staring at the sky from the balcony and giving long puffs to those half-burnt cigarettes. I have heard of people unable to sleep the whole night in joy or sorrow. I have heard of broken homes. Homes build by romantic couple wearing a deserted look after some years when both have decided to pursue their own ways. The home doesn’t have a place to go, to return to. A home does not have anything it can call home. So, clueless and helpless, its stands numb and ruined. The homes have seen them all. The romance, the fights, the kids, the growing of the kids, the leaving of the kids from homes. The homes have seen the male members leaving home to some far-off places in search of bread and butter for the family. The homes have seen men and women returning home after a difficult day. The homes have seen couples moving in, having families, growing old and dying. The homes have seen the houses changing hands, houses getting built, houses getting demolished. 

The homes have remained mute spectators.

There are people who have hardly stepped out of their homes their whole life. They haven't seen the world outside. Their world is all that is inside the four walls of their house. And then we have those people who have homes and yet they don’t enjoy the comforts of the home. They venture out in the world in search for something new, undiscovered and unexplored. They may take the ship and sail through the vast oceans or scale up all the way to the Everest. They may want to cross the Sahara or venture out to the moon! 

Even animals and birds have homes. Whether they stay in the jungles of Africa or Amazon, they have a place they call their own. The lions, the tigers, the snakes and the peacocks – they all have a place they return to at night, the place we call home, the place they call home. And then there are the migratory birds and animals, who have homes and yet abandon them every year, be it the Siberian birds that fly all the way to the Indian sub-continent in winter or the great migration of animals at the Maasai Mara and Serengeti National Park in July-September time.

One day I asked God, “Where is your abode – in mosques, temples, churches, gurudwaras…?”

“My abode?", He laughed. "What you call home is just a mental boundary. You talk with your fellow people and draw a boundary around a piece of earth – be it 10 by 10, 40 by 60 or 400 by 600 and call it your home. I have never created any boundary when I created the universe. You have created the boundaries. The boundaries are actually in your minds. If you let go the boundaries, the entire world can be called home. The limitless sky, the floating clouds, the fertile earth, the majestic mountain range, the deep blue ocean – you can find your home everywhere, just like me. But let me tell you one thing, my son, the actual home is within you, where your eternal soul dwells. That is where you find peace. That is where I also live in - within each of you, within every living being. That is where my home is!” 

Home is where the heart is