I often think about my grandparents’ home that I used to visit as a kid during summer vacations near Udupi in Karnataka.
It was not a luxurious house by any standard — just a modest tiled-roof coastal home with two rooms, a rectangular hall, a kitchen, and a large open veranda where guests were welcomed warmly.
The roof was tiled carefully to withstand the heavy monsoon rains common in the coastal regions. During summer evenings, cool breezes would flow through the veranda so gently that everyone forgot about the harsh afternoon heat. The house was always full — relatives talking loudly, children running around, steel utensils clattering in the kitchen, someone making tea, someone laughing in the background.
It was chaotic. But it was alive.
My uncle, who had initially taken up a software engineering job in Bangalore, later moved to Singapore during the 90s; after encouragement from friends who believed better opportunities awaited abroad.
Life there was not easy in the beginning. He struggled before finally securing stability. Once settled, he worked tirelessly — first to help my grandfather marry off his sisters, then to support the family financially.
Years later, he fulfilled another dream: building a beautiful bungalow beside our ancestral house.
My grandfather was overjoyed. He supervised every stage of construction with pride and excitement until the house was finally complete. A grand housewarming ceremony was organized. The home itself reflected a blend of Indo-European architecture, thoughtfully designed by my uncle and decorated with souvenirs collected from countries he had visited during vacations across the world.
It symbolized success, countless sacrifice and his achievement.
But life has a strange way of changing quietly.
Though the rooms became bigger and greater in number, yet the number of people inside them slowly decreased.
The old ancestral house once carried the noise of fifteen or twenty family members living together. Slowly, all that remained were my grandparents and a maid.
Somewhere amidst the anxiety of preserving a beautiful home — cleaning it, maintaining it, protecting its perfection — people slowly forgot to actually live inside it.
My grandfather, who once sat joyfully in the veranda welcoming guests with endless conversations, is no longer alive.
My grandmother, who once cooked tirelessly for visitors without ever complaining, suddenly became quieter after losing her spouse. It almost felt as though she had lost her hope for the future along with him.
The son whom they depended upon emotionally never truly returned home either. He continued moving forward, deeper into newer responsibilities, newer ambitions, newer dreams overseas.
And perhaps that is how life happens sometimes.
Not through cruelty or lack of love. But through distance created slowly by aspiration.
Today, the beautiful bungalow remains locked most of the year. A servant stays in the outhouse and cleans the rooms once a week, preserving a house that nobody truly lives in anymore.
The old house had cracks through which rats, snakes crept inside at times. With so many people visiting often there was noise, limited space, and endless chores. But it also had laughter drifting through the veranda, the smell of fresh food from the kitchen, and people waiting for each other at the dining table.
Maybe perfection quietly emptied the home that imperfection once kept alive. And perhaps that old, crowded, imperfect life was the prettiest chaos of all.
