We don’t do it any more because we now know how not-so-easy it would be for him, but not in a very distant past we used to persistently nag our father to move to a city that has better amenities and is more accessible to everyone and everything that they might need.
My father has a unique relationship with the house. It’s like that dear creation of an artist that is not valued by the world which makes it only more precious to him. Through the years, we have not shied away from blaming him for the bad planning in the past and poor execution in future. He has mostly relented to our demands of change but not without resistance. The changes and his resistance are a constant.
The house is as old as I am and the time it has taken to get to its current form is only little less than my age. I have literally grown with the house. I don’t remember everything about it but I think every room that has been added would coincide with some event in my lifetime. The work has never really stopped and the house has never seemed ready and complete.
Till very late, I didn’t see the toll that it took on the parents, especially my father. He is hypersensitive to any change, small or big, in the house. I remember instances where he would flinch and even cringe, at times, during the repair work that got more frequent than expected due to several reasons.
With time, the house has changed along with the surroundings.
It is now stacked between the new and the old houses which is not very pleasing considering ours is one of the oldest houses in the locality. Every other house surrounding us was once an open space that we have seen. It doesn’t get sunny anymore anywhere in the house. Its glum seems to have rubbed off on them and it doesn’t seem to get any better with time.
I have seen him age through this life and through this house without me realising when the greys and the wrinkles came and stayed. If at all you one can gather the resources to build a house in this country, it takes a lifetime to build one.
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P.S. I am trying to examine what it takes to build a house because I can’t even begin to think what a demolition could unleash on those who lived in the houses that were brought down.
We underestimate our relationship with physical spaces! Lovely read, and the demolitions are indeed so unfortunate and disturbing.