There is a song- “Jahan pe savera ho basera wahin hai”. The song somehow touches my heart. This heart had made so many associations with inanimate objects that is the walls of a house. It weaved dreams, it cried, it laughed in so many houses which were its home. Everyone said it was not your home, this is a rented property but the heart never listened. For the heart this was the home where it can find solace. And everytime when the time came to move on, the heart cried and thought why it can’t stay where it was, why so many changes?
I have stayed in five houses and that too in the same city. My association with each of the houses were unique, all are etched in my memory and now the time has come again to move, to move on to what people call own home. The number six has always been unique to me. It has somehow proved eventful and lucky. so my sixth house seems to be lucky to me. I spent the day there and could find the connect which is very essential. I think the house talks to you in its own way. It is where you find peace, which comforts you when you are troubled.
Shelter is so important and be that rented or own property it somehow has a defining role to play in your life. I still wonder if moving from one place to another does this to me what happens to those who live out of suitcase. To those who have to move every year. What happens to those who don’t have home at all? India has 78 million homeless people and there is a shortage of 18.78 million houses in the country even though number of houses has increased from 52.06 million to 78.48 million(as per 2011 census). How do these people live without houses?
The thought is so frightening. You live without any support. You don’t know where to go at the end of the day. When I think of this my heart wonders was it being insensitive cribbing about change? I wonder am I not lucky to get a house, a nice one at that for so many years. Am I not lucky now to move on to a house which would be at more convenient location. Why do I dread the change? Why do I want to be static? If I have to move then I have to. And I remember again lines of another song, “Musafir hoon yaron na ghar hai na thikana, mujhe chalte jaana hai, bas chalte jaana.” We all have to keep on moving always, isn’t it?
