What is the family house concept that was prevalent in India?
When people in my home state Kerala ask me where I am from, I reply that I am from a small town near Mavelikkara, called Kollakadavou and near that from a small ‘muri’ Kadaikadu. Why do I say that? It’s because my family home is there.
I wasn’t born there but my father and his father were born in the same compound, in the land where my family homes sits. If you add all the time I have spent there, it will not add to even ten years out of the sixty three years that I have walked this earth. Yet, it means something to me.
The house I grew up in was built by my father and mother. Daddy paid for it and Mummy supervised a major part of the construction at a time when women in other parts of India rarely came out of the kitchen. Daddy’s house, which was his grandfathers house, was next to ours and sadly we had to demolish it when we built our house.
Remember this, in those days there were no housing loans or any such things. Daddy worked his backside off in what was initially and latterly a hostile environment, in Tanganyika/ Tanzania. The Africans were lovely people and their hostility towards us when they were still under British rule, was understandable. Their hostility after a decade or so of freedom, was not so easily explainable. He bought lands, paid his siblings for his share and made all this while sending his four children to the best residential school in the south of India. Then gave them a good post school education. My parents invested all their lives in their children and the property they bought.
Unlike today, my parents never went on holidays to anywhere but Kerala and the Nilgiris because we studied there. This should have been at the back of the minds of their children. I’m not sure it has crossed our minds.
Today’s scenario:
Today, because youngsters leave their hometowns in search of jobs and live in cities where they get work, their children may not know what the concept of a Family House is. Yes, they think their paternal/ maternal grand parents house is the family house. While that may be right, it will only become your family house if your parents or their siblings choose at some point to go back and live there. Yet, the concept is what is important. Respect and love for what our ancestors went through to build a base for them and their future generations.
Nowadays, almost 90% do not do that. They sell their ancestorial property and buy something elsewhere. Or, as happens in many families, the house is locked and forgotten due to litigation between the children. The latter is the interesting scenario, that actually interests me.
I have been thinking a lot about this as I get to the last quarter of my life. Why do people disrespect what their parents did? Why do children dispose off their parents in old age homes and many times abandon them in stations, religious places etc? What did their parents do to deserve this? What gives children the right to demand what they did not make? Aren’t your old parents deserving of their homes, the ones they built or strove to keep for their children?
I don’t know if this analogy is right, but, still, here goes:
In one of the famous instances of King Solomons wisdom we hear of how he settled the issue of who was the actual mother of the disputed child. When Solomon asked that the child be cut into two, the real mother, preferred to hand the child to the imposter rather than have the child killed. So, when children fight over their Family home, their family heritage and wealth do they think, like the real mother did and allow the dignity of their parents to shine, by allowing the imposters to keep what they want rather than destroy what their parents made? I still do not know the answer.
I used the example of the Family Home, which is slowly dying, to also mean all what our parents and grand parents left for us. What they built or safeguarded for the next generation. How would they feel if they could come back to life once and look at what their children did or are doing? Are we not meant to respect even one paise of what they left for us by upholding their ideals and ensuring that we dignify their memories, by not fighting over what is really not ours? Or am I delusional?
As I watch with sadness the greed that encompasses children who forget that they have not earned what their parents left behind, I am left with so much respect for those who have little but show that they respect what they got. I am glad I know of three sisters who did all they had and have done everything in their power to ensure that what their parents left behind is looked after collectively and shared with dignity and gratitude. More strength to such people. Who you are is not determined by your wealth or position in society but your actions.
20
20
20
20
Your blog and it touched a nerve. The family home of yours, once filled with life and memories, now locked up and slowly slipping into neglect, is not an easy sight to even imagine.
When I was clearing my own property recently, hacking through what looked like a mini jungle, the helper and a neighbour brought up your place too. They said the wild growth has almost claimed it. I had hoped to walk over and take a few photos before leaving, but a sudden downpour put an end to that plan.
Your thoughts on the idea of a family home stayed with me. These places carry the weight of the stories, sacrifices, and hopes of our parents and grandparents. But the truth is, after three or four generations, life pulls children away in different directions. Jobs, responsibilities, distance, and sometimes disagreements push these old houses into silence. Many are sold off, others locked up due to disputes, and some, like mine, simply cannot be protected any longer.
I too had to watch my ancestral home come down. Not because of any fight, but because leaving it unattended would have invited vandals and thieves. It was a painful choice, but there was no other way.
I fully feel the sentiment you express, and I share your respect for what our parents built with sheer hard work and sacrifice. But I have also come to accept that preserving such legacies is something only a few can manage. For most of us, the memories outlive the walls.
Your worry about dignity, gratitude, and respect is valid. These values should never fade. But the physical home may not always survive, and that does not mean children love their parents any less.
Sometimes the past is honoured not by holding on to the structure, but by carrying forward the values that built it. And sometimes, for our own peace, we have to gently let go.
Thank you for your wonderfully poignant words.