Why not having a home helps to go around the world
Priya Ramani -
Thursday, April 03, 2008 6:13 PM
Here's a post from the husband...It's due to be published in The Hindustan Times this weekend
You know the look.
The eyebrows arch ever so slightly. The lips curve downward for an instant. The head nods.
It's the look that says: I heard you, and though I said "wow", I actually think you're an idiot.
I'm 42, I've been working 18 years, and that's the look I get when I tell people I don't own a home. If it were up to me, I would never buy one (sorry parents, in-laws and other family, but that's the truth).
The wife and I could afford a flat, if we scrimped and saved, if we took a house loan - and repaid the loan by middle age.
It makes sense, doesn't it?
A home, an asset that only appreciates in value, and stability.
The problem is, I have an addiction.
It began with a childhood in the Deccan, that rocky heart of the peninsula where the summers seem eternal. I have vague to non-existant memories of my neighbourhoods and my friends.
Here's what I do remember: Raichur, Bellary, Bidar, Gulbarga; gili-danda - fashioning perfectly balanced gilis - or lagori, a game of seven piled stones that had to be demolished with a ball by the opposing team; paya, soupy trotters, for breakfast and gagging on force-fed palak for dinner; aimless wandering through dusty roads, stopped frequently by a skittish, leashed pet sheep (called Curly by me and my similarily unimaginative brother), bhanamati, the dark, black magic of the summertime, watching the spirits enter and leave bodies with startling regularity; ghostly medieval tombs; caravanserais; forts and lost cities.
As a young man, my memories changed: frantically turning my motorcycle around to chase ambulances (in the days before cellphones) as a crime reporter; riots; love; buses; chicken shorba without the chicken at the end of the month; elections. Then, the American Midwest: sleeping under oak trees; marveling at the fat squirrels; 99-cent burgers on bankrupt nights; driving on the wrong side of interstate highways; the girls and their smiles; being a teacher; being a student again; being dumped; being sad; being confused.
Then Bombay. Then Delhi. Then Vietnam. Then True Love. Then Mumbai.
Since I and the wife have no home, we have no choice but to keep moving. This week, we are moving into a new home: the landlord decided to double our rent. Yes, yes, I know. If we had a home of our own ...
But since we have no home, we have no debt. Since we have no debt and no assets of the sort middle-class India treasures, we are sinking our money into a round-the-world trip. As you read this, we will be on a trans-oceanic flight, our new temporary home locked, our inner minds expanding again to new experiences that will soon become new memories.
A nomad is his memories. And if those memories are nomadic, they become addictions - and addictions, to the addict, are reality.
I like my reality.
Samar Halarnkar
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