The word `Home’ immediately brings to mind, a warm, secure place that provides comfort and solace, a happy place with happy memories. A home is a sanctuary, a shelter, a safe haven, where we all find our bearings, the place where we actually unwind and truly relax after every hectic and chaotic day in our frenzied lives.
Wherever we go, be it on a vacation or on a tour to some exotic destination, there’s a point when we all yearn to get back home. It’s a place we all come back to eventually, no matter where we go. However humble or palatial a dwelling is, we each call it our home. Our home is where we find ourselves, establish our identity and start to develop our personality before going out into the world to blend in and amalgamate experiences with people and places that eventually shape our personalities.
Over thousands of years, across nations and diverse cultures, humans have evolved from being cave dwellers to residing in more refined spaces of varied build types, which are familiar to us today as dwelling units. Our loincloth clad, cave dwelling ancestors too found comfort in their cave homes, as that’s where they found shelter from the formidable weather and wildlife that threatened their existence.
Never before, has collective humanity probably realized the relevance of a Home more than now. The phrase, `Home Sweet Home’, never before sounded so true in its essence. In these times of Covid19, probably the most used and most heard words are, `Stay Home’, `Stay Safe’. Today, our home is where we all find ourselves `locked down’, to save us from a deadly virus!
People may never have considered a scenario when they would be spending so much time at home. But now they have been forced to spend months at home without being able to step out other than for essentials. It may have been an unthinkable proposition a few months back. But today, we are reluctant to leave the security of our homes. Such is the feeling of protection and comfort that our home provides.
In the safety of our homes, we have rediscovered lost family bonds, the joy and warmth of togetherness that we lost somewhere in the insane, berserk ebb and flow of fast life.
Although imposed, the lockdown has, among other things, also succeeded in bringing out the hidden talents in people as they remained in the security of their homes.
Parents have suddenly glimpsed some of the obscure talents of their kids after they constantly shared long hours in each other’s company in the comfort of their homes. Not just kids, parents too found themselves uncovering their long forgotten hobbies, bringing lots of personal joy and satisfaction. Doing things together as a family was never this enjoyable. In our homes, we loved, played, argued, fought and experienced the joys of togetherness and fun filled days, even when the fear of a deadly virus kept us locked indoors.
We cannot think of our home without being emotional. Most of us carry fond memories of our home, as the place we grew up, a space, where we unite and bond as a family, where we have our silly little fights and share the joys of our little triumphs and the pain of our failures with our loved ones. This precious place that we call home, is what connects us with the world and defines our place in time. Our home, is where our story began…
