Recently, as we embarked upon a journey to dispose a family home in Delhi, I realized that handing over of an already abandoned home is not as easy task as it appears.
A treasure trove of untold tales
A rambling old home is like a wizened old ancestor. Like a family patriarch who may suffer from dementia but hold untold tales within the deep furrows of his wrinkled face , and those that inadvertently spill out from time to time. Deep within his belly grandpa may hold memories of family lores that are occasionally revealed in his sighs of part relief-part sadness as he takes his laboured breath from his rattly rib-cage … An old home is no different . Every crevice and crumbling wall in our home contained the ghost impressions of collective memories of three generations, that are deeply embedded within its concrete DNA. The echoes of cries and gurgles of little ones born here, whispers of laughters and tears, have given its damp walls a musky residual aroma of numerous untold narratives.
Last Celebration
This year , I had to spend my last Diwali in this home where I had stepped in as a young impressionable bride aeons ago. We made the effort to decorate its damp crumbling walls, strung lights and marigold flowers across wobbly doorways and prayed for its easy passage from this life. To beyond. The new owners are all set to demolish and build their own signature edifice soon. Another lifetime , another saga to be spun by another family.
There was a sense of sadness and deliverance, as well as a whole bunch of mixed emotions difficult to fathom.
A visual Jigsaw puzzle As I sifted and sorted out trunks of old shawls and saris and a pile of wasting furniture, I chanced upon a very precious treasure – family photographs covering three or four generations. There were photographs of people who I had seen in their eighties in sepia toned parchment , as brides and grooms; pictures of grown-up brothers- in-law as toothless babies, my own gawky pics holding my newborn…. And it opened the sluice gates of a million memories I made and those I could imagine of relatives, who hadn’t lived here but touched our lives in the years gone by. It was like stepping into a retro metaverse.
Converting a house into a home
A house is not just a brick and mortar structure . It is a home in which dreams are nurtured, fears conquered and characters shaped. As modern-day nomads, we have mastered the art of travelling across countries, carrying these dismantled dreams like folded furniture to be reassembled in new homes across the seven seas. Mine were reassembled in Dubai while my sons will probably create theirs in their trans Atlantic homes . And so …will continue the saga of career bohemians in quest of new pegs to hang old memories on.
