My Life and Times: Edam

Home is not a Structure; but a situation

Dear Friend,

Someone said like this....Home, The spot of the Earth, Supremely blest ,sweeter and dearer than rest of all . I have been loving and living in my home even before I heard the rhyme-- My Home, Sweet Home. Our 69 model tiled house was bought from an old woman who was was a nurse by profession... That old house with enough space was our kingdom on the Earth. When I’m trying to say that it is my best destination in the world, don’t think it was renovated with new technologies or with high end facilities. But it is still beautiful.

“Home is where you can say anything you please, because nobody pays any attention to you anyway”

In my childhoods, If I had a pencil in my hands; I would check whether it was ‘HB or 2H’ by drawing pictures on the house walls. As I grew up I drew sketches on the paper; but I pasted them on the same walls. After, I was asking to mamma, “how is it...” “Good work, keep it up”. Some other times we sang some old Christian songs so loudly under the roofs. Amma said a lie to me “You are singing good”..Later i was curious to hear my voice. So I recorded my voice in one rare ‘Kadamanitta kavithakal’ Cassette. I played the song on our Philips radio...I was proud of my voice until my father came for the next vacation. In those days my sister was a Margam kali artist in our school. She used to rehearse its steps in our home. When the ‘Thoma charitham’ was playing in the background, We also joined with her in the rehearsals. All these mischievous things which I was doing and am doing were learnt and supported from my Home. A man can feel his freedom or express his emotions at that edge of the world, The Home, Even if nobody listens you!!

There were frequent load sheddings in our town during that time. Those nights, our courageous sister used to cry like a cat.... "Mummyeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......pediyavunnu.."Why you are worrying, You are at Home, Aren’t!..But I was not feared; not because I was bold; but I would have already slept at that time. However our house is having false ceiling of wood throughout. So thieves needed a long time to storm in to our aged abode. But some other outsiders migrated over there. We gave work visa for the cats. But a terror animal migrated and stay over there for a long time,’ Tree-Dog’. In the nights it was moving on the false wooden ceilings. That created another occasion to cry like a cat for my sister. "Mummyeeeeeeeeeee.. pediyavunnu." So One day I hold an ‘Ulakka’ and vowed that one lion is enough in this Jungle. Yes, we felt Our Home as an extended form of womb; It protects!

Home was my kindergarten of faiths and beliefs. I always woke up in the morning by hearing her prayers. Most of our night prayers were sink in laughter. We laughed at each other on their mistakes in reading The Bible. Once they suffered to end their laugh while i was reading, they heard ‘Bharthave’ instead of ‘Karthave’ .All the times our mother got annoyed and angered, you are praying or playing? All family prayers were ended with bible stories, or light spiritual chats. My Home was my first Church.

At the times of my illness, Home served as a trusted hospice to me. I used to come to the comfort of my home, whenever I got sick. Half of my sickness would go, if I reached there. My home hugged a lot of people at their ailing times, since our house was near to the Town; relatives from the villages were came and stayed with us until they got well. My home has a power to cure!!

Sometimes it was an inn, other times it was a school of science and arts, or it was a food stall, or a playground, or a stage of performance, or my weeping corner!! Though there were differences in opinions, Home keeps us together! I could tell I was blessed (?) by having a Home.

As per Housing and habitat policy-’07, Home is a fundamental right .Kerala is known for its unique settlement pattern with independent houses on individual plots scattered and across the habitable areas, though it is a land scarce economy. Because of its distinctive social, geographic and climatic conditions, the centre of life of an average Malayalee for many centuries at least has been the house and not the village, with people favouring houses built on small garden lands. Once Marthoma Metropolitian wrote on his pages about a Japanese who came to visit him. He shared with Bishop that Like in Kerala, He can never think of Japanese having their own houses on individual plots. It may be a luxury for them. There is a tremendous pressure on land in the world.

Home is a Unique and common dream of every Keralite. Most of them even doing their job just to full fill that genuine dream...But recently I came across a fact that 500 thousand people in Kerala are homeless. Then I wondered what will be the count under nationwide or under worldwide... The contemporary crisis on this basic need of a man is the domination of market forces and they make it as a distant dream for common people. I believe everyone have the right to have his own shelter and was offered by God!

My Love to You

Subin

It is still in my ears what Sr. Felicia asked me; can you support us for One Home?