HOME?

"When are you going to your home?" Kumar asked Sandhya. 

"Next Wednesday" Sandhya answered. 

When Kumar left for the office, Sandhya went to deep thoughts. Why Kumar has mentioned 'your' home? When you are married it is more like 'our' home. Sandhya's parents and in-laws live in town. Sandhya is a homemaker, during her kids’ summer holidays she visits her home town. 

From the past 8 years, her in-laws and her husband will call it is her house. Her parents and relatives call her in-laws house as ‘Her’ house. Sometimes she does not understand, if she has 2 homes, but feeling homeless.

Her in-laws say

“ It is not the way we deal in our house”

“Please don’t bring your home rules to this house”

“Don’t forget to take this while going to your home?”

Sandhya is confused. When you marry a person, and you are ready to accept their family as yours, building new relationships between the families, she is ready to call her in-laws home as “our” home, why can’t Kumar calls her parents home as our home. Why he always say it is “your” home?

It doesn’t mean that Kumar is a bad person. Kumar is an open-minded, caring and loving husband. And her in-laws are also warm and friendly. However, they refer to her parents’ house as hers. Every time they say this, a question arises. Is that house is not Kumar’s? If she can own this house mentally and verbally, why not Kumar can own that house?

She is okay when they say your parents’ home. But when they say it is your home, she has a problem.

Whenever she is sick, she cannot ask her Mom-in-law to make her an extra cup of tea. She cannot ask her Father-in-law to bring sanitary pads. She can’t ask her husband to help her with extra chores at home, because of guests, because she doesn’t want to give an extra burden over his office work. There are times she got a thought that does she belong here? Even when she and in-laws are moving freely. If it was her parents’ home, she can get up lazily at 10’O clock. Especially, for this reason, she missed her home.

This is only one side of a coin. The other side is her parents.

But ironically, whenever she comes to her parents home, her parents, aunts, siblings say

“How is everyone at your home?”

“How do you do things at your home”

She spent 25 years at that home, still, she is considered as outsider after marriage. What if she was born as a boy? Then would she consider that home as hers?

She was born in that house. She loved the people in that house, and they loved her. The people in that house have been with her in kith and kin till her marriage. Now her mother is making special dishes, her father is bringing special ice cream, her brother is crying when Sandhya leaves. She is happy when they express their love, but the indirect meaning, a you-will-not-be-with-us-for-too-long message is disturbing her. Even though she is compromised that she can’t be there for a long time, will that imply she is just a guest every year?

She can’t own her parent’s home as hers now. However, she cannot own her in-laws home also, as there are some invisible boundaries drawn for their relation. It is not like she is not comfortable or doesn’t get love at both the homes, still, she feels like she is homeless sometimes.

As Indian women, her heart will be 50% at her parents and 50% at her husband and in-laws. Is this where the flickering of emotions start in a women’s life, just like Sandhya?