House Warning

How does one describe residential complexes of today? Matchbox houses, community homes that look so identical that they would make Prakash Karat and company proud (you see equality is their USP), or dog pens?

I was looking at an advertisement placed by a large recently-listed builder in one of the national newspapers. The builder claimed to be selling dreams not homes. One look at the picture that went with the ad and I realized how true.

It was indeed a dream that was on offer. But an ugly looking one. There stood a giant structure with maybe over a 1000 flats. It reminded me of some of those sci-fi flicks where for some strange reason writers and directors depict aliens as gory creatures living in frighteningly monstrous abodes.

I took another look at that ad and this time what caught my attention was the scheme. Pay Rs.50,000 and take home the key. Yes, I said to myself, the rest we will keep sucking in EMIs. If I were to buy the house outright it will cost me Rs.12 million. If I opt for the EMI, Rs30 million. I guess that's a conservative estimate.

Rs. 12 million for this pig pen, I asked myself. The communists would have been proud at the construction, but would have seen a US hand in the pricing. The monster breaks down all walls of differenciation. Each house looking a mirror image of the next. Two we call a twin, so what do we call a 1000? A freak show, I say.

So now we will have 1000 more families living together in similar prison sells. Living the great urban dream. How I yearn for the time when each home had an individual feel and look. Yet there was unity in diversity.

Today, we are united in greed, divided at heart. How times are a changing. I know change is the only constant and out of chaos will emerge sanity. But I rue the passing of innocence, the coming of deception. But there is hope as I await the return of innocence. Maybe in vain, but there is great joy in letting hope float.