THE
IDEA
OF
H OME
Home, a nest, where one grows up, An abode, where one belongs, A place, where one thrives, A sacred shelter, where one is energised and calm. Home, is our habitat. [The WHAT] Here, there is a lot of ‘manna.’ Home defines you; [The WHO] You thus, define your Home, Here, you are safe and assured. Being home, is all that matters, Here, blooms the inertia of certainty; That, is the only truth one lives by. But, for how long? The only truth, is, the impending wrath of Nature. Will your home shield you from this silent thunder? Will your home protect you, From being charred in the water, like the Pharaohs? From being consumed by the fire? From being suffocated by the air? From being drowned in the land? From being darted by the sky? There are anomalies galore! With firm questions, but only floating answers, There is an infinite void. How to address this? We are in a frantic need for breakthrough solutions. Cluttering our sky with satellites, is not the solution; Technology, is not the solution; Finding life on other planets because ours is getting exhausted, is not the solution; Climate treaties alone, are not the solution; War, is definitely not the solution. Being simply aware at times, is a workable solution, if we orient ourselves. Home, the Who and the What, we know. But Where is our home? Or has its omnipresence, made it invisible. We are the cyclic inhabitants of this very Home, Our home is our Blue Marble, our Earth.
THE
IDEA OF HOME
And, How did it come to exist? (as stated by Susan and Geoffrey Jellicoe in The Landscape of Man:)
The surface was chaotic, Cloud masses hung over a barren volcanic landscape so hot, That the constant rain instantly turned into steam. Then, with time, The boiling settled, and the core magnified; The outer started to support Life. Life a variable, dependent on the eerie sense of continuum. And flux, the only constant in the entire universe, Dabbled simultaneously amidst the harmonic fusion between time and space. Phenomena, Interpretation, Response, the three words, Shaped the face of the Earth, Oblivious about the underlying metaphysical order, Nature. Nature recedes from us, just as we reach out for it. Is it true? Or are we incompetent to understand this phenomenon? Natural landscape is an oxymoron and Cultural landscape, a tautology. (very aptly put in Thomas Oles’s Go with Me_ 50 steps to Landscape Architecture)
Nature is ever-evolving, Thus, landscape, which is seen and felt at a moment is true for that particular moment only. Landscape, the repository of life, has to be understood by decoding the myriad realms it encompasses. The historic realm, still felt in the present; The ecological realm, endlessly transmitting signals, backing, our survival; The socio-political realm, which thinks has the power to shape Nature; The socio-economic realm, which plays with or against, this power; The present realm swiftly becoming the past; All woven together in time and space, dropping hints of the beyond. The reality, the unforeseen, yet fathomable future. Truth, is, that we are just a speck, We are nothing, but stardust, Living on Earth, that too, a speck, Powered by the Sun, that too, a speck. These specks are our world, They are our reference points from where we trace the unknown, These, are enough for us to exist.
THE
IDEA OF HOME
Hence, Home, is not a measure of its form and scale, Home, is thus an attitude. A fervour with which we live, An instinct, within all abiotic & biotic, Home, is the responsibility which we have towards our future generations, Home, is a narrative of our very existence. When you are on your own path, Then, Where you are, With whom you are, doesn’t matter. You are with yourself, always, and that is what matters. You can be anywhere, and be complete, You can be anywhere, without having to be somewhere else, You, are always in a state of comfort, The comfort of just being yourself, always; You, are your home.