Houses, Apartments, and Visions of a New Indian Home
Photo: Karan Madhok
As a generation of Indians move from living in houses to apartments, Vipin Labroo argues that we must envision our new spaces to reflect better synthesis with the rhythms of nature, the way that our traditional homes once were.
I remember growing up in a Dehradun, long before it became the noisy capital of the state of Uttarakhand. The Doon Valley of that time was a quiet and laid-back town, where everything happened at a slow, languorous pace. Everyone we knew lived in a house, with flats and apartments being virtually unknown. Many of these homes were spacious, and invariably came with a front lawn and sometimes land for a kitchen garden at the back. For instance, a house we resided in Clement Town (a Dehradun suburb), had a mini orchard of litchi and mango trees, as well as its very own well. The neighbours lived in similarly large houses and one would drop by at each other’s place quite often in the evenings. The grown-ups gossiping over tea and snacks, while the children played cricket in the open spaces that abounded nearby or busied themselves with board games indoors.
Many Indians of my generation grew up in similar homes, not apartments and flats. These homes were both graceful and comforting in a primeval way, because they were in sync with nature, and seamlessly blended with the flow and ebbs of the seasons. These may have been humble abodes or rambling bungalows, but there was none of the ant colony-like aura that the flats and multi-storey apartments of today exude.
Many Indians of my generation grew up in similar homes, not apartments and flats… These may have been humble abodes or rambling bungalows, but there was none of the ant colony-like aura that the flats and multi-storey apartments of today exude.
One knew that people in Mumbai—or what was then known as Bombay—lived in flats, but the rest of the country happily lived in their “houses.” We would get to obtain a slice of the ‘apartment life’ thanks to Hindi films like Jagte Raho (1956) with its noir overtones; or Mili (1976), which featured dark and brooding urban ambiance juxtaposed with an unfailing zest for life by the chronically sick central character. Later there were television serials like Mr Ya Mrs (1987-88), Rajani (1985), Hum Paanch (1995-99), Sarabhai vs Sarabhai (2004-06), and Srimaan Shrimati (1994) that gave us a peep into how the denizens of Maximum City lived their lives in apartments of varying sizes. Some of us would learn about apartment living in a New York City-like megapolis, thanks to Superman or Spider-Man comics, or animated films that we were lucky enough to catch on television.
After liberalization in the early 1990s one saw young people flock to metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai in search of employment. The rapidly expanding private sector offered them decent jobs and an aspirational lifestyle that was inspired by how people in the West lived. As the numbers of these new immigrants with a fair amount of earning power grew, so did the need to house them and the only way that the land-starved megacities could grow was vertically. Private builders cashed in on this, and soon, our premier cities became home to tens of thousands of apartments of various kinds.
These apartment complexes provided an oasis of gated tranquility with their many amenities and facilities the least of which was a fair amount of living space and perks, like parking space, parks, leisure facilities, and above all, round-the-clock security. That is something a house of yore did not offer in the same way. But one didn’t need to worry about RO filtered water or a designated parking spot—which would often be the space in front of the house, or even a personal garage. One didn’t need dedicated leisure facilities, as there would be enough vacant spaces and improvised playgrounds in the vicinity. As for security: the neighbours looked out for each other, and the friendly chowkidar would make one feel safe by blowing his whistle while patrolling the neighbourhood on foot, late into the night.
Meanwhile, many of today’s apartment complexes need to extract groundwater for drinking purposes and use generators to provide power backup, in areas where there are frequent power cuts. Living so close to each other in apartments has also often led to disagreements, fracas, and brawls, usually over minor domestic issues like parking, unruly pets, and children’s quarrels escalating into parent slug fests. A recent example of this kind of mayhem was a violent brawl over the burning of an agarbatti at a residential society in Kalyan, Mumbai, which led to the injury of three people.
At first, it was only our major metropolitan cities that erected apartments rising from terra firma, like surreal concrete stalks reaching for the sun. Now, the love for apartment-living is now a nationwide phenomenon: From sometimes laid-back towns like Lucknow and Kanpur to sometime pensioners' paradises like Pune and Dehradun, there are apartments everywhere. In Goa, they block the view of the sea, and in Manali that of the mountains. They are beginning to dominate the skylines of holy cities and quaint towns nestled in the lap of rolling, misty hills. Apartments overlook expanses of jungles and lagoons alike. The concrete acts a colonizer, hell-bent upon exercising its writ over every bit of nature that is left in any corner of the country.
People migrate from the remotest of villages and hamlets from Bihar and Jharkhand to Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu, leaving behind acres and acres of greenery and lungsful of clean and fresh air to live in towns and cities. These offer them higher wages and cramped living in flats and apartments piled on top of and next to each other where they get to breathe air that slowly weakens their bodies, and makes their minds disconnect from the very nature that gave them sustenance.
The lack of employment opportunity, law and order conditions, as well as the desire to provide a ‘better future’ to their children, are the primary reasons for small, far-flung villages and nondescript towns across India to swell towards bigger cities, all to be condemned to what I believe is a colourless life of grind and social upheaval. A good example of this is the many remote and inaccessible villages of Uttarakhand which have very few able-bodied young men left, as nearly all of them have migrated to urban centres in search of work. These Himalayan ‘ghost villages’ are a stark example of the move from an almost idyllic village life to a harried life lived out of cramped human urban dwellings that abound in the towns and cities of India.
But then, who is to say that the charms of apartment living will not extend to the countryside in the not-so-distant future? After all, for every acre of green virgin land, there is an avaricious builder ready to move in with their bulldozers to efficiently flatten the land, and sell a whole new apartment dream to the brave new young who dream big. I remember reading about how the writer Ruskin Bond had left Mussoorie to settle in the quieter cantonment town of Landour nearby, because the former had become very noisy. But I wonder how he copes with the droves that descend even upon his one-time tranquil haven in the hills every weekend, as Landour, too begins to fill up with the hordes and noise he had once escaped?
India is the most populated country in the world, and apartment living seems to be the only way that most people can possibly house themselves. The economics of reverting to living in houses are now mostly untenable with the prohibitive cost of acquiring land.
Much as I would like a ‘back to home’ movement to take root and spread across the length of our land, India is the most populated country in the world, and apartment living seems to be the only way that most people can possibly house themselves. The economics of reverting to living in houses—as in the past—are now mostly untenable with the prohibitive cost of acquiring land. The population of the country is bursting at the seams, and for most, there simply isn’t the luxury to build as one pleases. Yes, leading lifestyle and architectural magazines may feature many beautiful and sprawling houses of the wealthy, with rolling and undulating landscapes built in appropriately sylvan surroundings. The rest of us, however, have no choice but to do the best with the apartments we have.
Perhaps a solution is to make apartments more eco-friendly and aesthetically-pleasing. From growing one’s own vegetables and learning to compost one’s food waste to using materials like bamboo and cork to do up one’s home and making your living space green by keeping a variety of plants, you can make your apartment a testament to sustainable living. One could turn to using upcycled décor, being mindful of things like water conservation, and using energy efficient gadgets, etc.
An example of something like this is the SJR Redwoods housing society in Bengaluru, which has pioneered a unique concept of creating a “good forest” on its common land, which allows residents to not only get access to refreshing green spaces, but also pluck herbs. Residents here follow the practice of aerobic composting, which helps them effectively manage waste, so much so that they have achieved ‘zero garbage’ status. Instead of splurging on swimming pools, fancy play areas and manicured lawns that induce wasteful usage of scarce resources, the apartment owners have chosen to convert their premises into a healthy forested space that boasts a host of native trees that nurture the environment. Their regenerative waste disposal method on the other hand ensures that the local landfills are not overburdened.
I believe that the ideal goal must be to make our apartments and flats more natural and better synchronized with the rhythms of nature, the way that our traditional homes once were. With the right amount of planning, an apartment block can be made a thriving and living ecosystem that boasts vegetation, and channels light and energy in a natural manner. This will take away the harshness and the synthetic ambiance of many modern apartments that seems to be in conflict with nature. Residents would feel at one with the elements of nature and find a deep peace, of the kind that one finds when one visits an old ancestral house in a verdant valley.
Apartment living can be environmentally, aesthetically, and spiritually uplifting, too. With more thought to design and gracious living, apartments could become the homes we once used to reside.
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Vipin Labroo is a content creator, author and PR consultant. A member of the Nonfiction Authors Association, he has years of corporate experience working with an eclectic range of clients, writing press releases, articles, blogs, white papers, research reports, website content, eBooks and so on across segments like technology, business & marketing, internet marketing, healthcare, fashion, real estate, travel and so on. You can find him on Twitter: @labroovipin and Instagram: @vipin_labroo.
