Home Sweet Home

Finally, the courage to home in on a home dream is taking wings. Still a long way from hitting 30, I can at least nurture the hope of buying a flat, turning head on the conventional wisdom of investing your life-long savings in that abode which you call home. My dad built a house, after years of toil fighting the behemoth called government from within, on meager salaries and ironically an exalted position. He built on FDs, those post office savings and the recurring account. And all the life-long saving was parked in the non-glitzy and red tape ridden nationalized banks. Those were not the days of swanky banks, ‘well-behaved’ call center bank executives and when you still had to wait for hours to withdraw your own money. He counted his money – some for my and my brother’s education, a little for the unavoidable household expenses and none for what our generation parks for extravagances like holidays and branded attire. And after years of financial management and prudence, there it was, a mansion. He achieved this feat at a comparatively young 51, sacrificing his desires. Cut to 21st century. In the times of liberalization, privatization and consequently unbridled consumerism, here I am, his son, dreaming of a flat in a Delhi suburb, with small savings but high expectations. A poor journalist, considering the high-flying salaries in corporate India, is scouting for a place in the metro without any outside boundaries and where real estate rates are soaring like the fortune of our most venal politicians. For a 2 BHK, which has almost become the most chattered dialect in the realty sector, they demand an obscene and intimidating amount. But there they are to help me, the banks, the housing finance firms, bubbling with liquidity, urging me to become a part of the inevitable loan culture. They promise me a house for which I won’t have to wait for 15 years. They propel me into conceptualizing a house without any substantial savings. They are powering the great Indian middle class youth's dream of a owning a home in their 20s and 30s. Now, we don't have to turn 51 for that breathing space.