Heart, happiness, and home

My home isn’t a museum
Nor a theatre or an office
And surely not a warehouse
My home is where my heart is. 

My home isn’t a maxim
Nor an idiom or a proverb
And surely not a grammar textbook
My home is where my happiness is. 

My home isn’t a battlefield
Nor a research lab or a banquet hall
And surely not the parliament
My home is where
I begin my day and come back to
My home is where
My heart and happiness is. 

Well, I can go on and on and on about what my home isn’t and what it really is… and the list can be endless and constantly changing. But I am absolutely sure of what I mean when I say that my home is where my heart and happiness is.

Heart? How do reflect your heart in your home?

It’s quite easy, really. Let me explain. Whenever I go to my friend’s house who is in the army and does a lot of trekking and is quite a nature lover, there is a definite sense of his lifestyle that radiates from his home. His wife and daughter too love to go on long drives and walks and so I find them comfortably cocooned in a home that has rooms full of drift-wood miracles, pictures of them smiling after excruciatingly long walks, and lots of potted plants. None of the things in their home appears out of the blue and a misfit… or just waiting to be replaced or thrown away. A visitor will find brass shells there… and dummy grenades and bullets… khukris on the wall… driftwood masterpieces carefully polished and transformed into lamp-shades or even stools and boxes… pictures of them on mountain tops and popping out from mustard fields… and even exotic plants brought from different States and being nurtured with love. This then is a home where the heart is.

Now if someone were to visit them and then acquire drift-wood pieces from shops, would they look fine in a home where those who live there have neither interest nor connection with such things? For instance, a writer who never goes out and is a voracious reader would be comfortable in a home where there are books lying everywhere… on the tables, in piles, and even on the floor. Now, one driftwood piece posing as a paper-weight and reminding this writer of his walk on a river-bed is acceptable… but a house full of them that have no stories connected to the life of this writer will make no sense. This house will not be reflecting the writer in any way and thus this home would tend to remain a trifle cold and aloof and, if I may say so, without a heart.

Happiness – what’s the connection between a home and happiness?

Stories. Stories are what connect a home with happiness. So often, the owner will get up, fondly pick up that inexpensive metal model of Eifel Tower and go back in time to tell you the story of how youngsters from Haryana were selling these in Paris and the sort of hearty discussion he had with them. Or that scratched and dented pen in the pen-stand will trigger another story about how it was gifted to him by his uncle who wrote his first novel using the same pen.

So, yes, there will be stories connected to almost everything and a home that is filled with such things, even though being different from each other, will usher in happy moments.

Can I buy a bit of my heart and some happiness from stores?

This is a fairly difficult question… but then there are so many places I’ve been to and did not get the time to buy something that will remind me of the happy time I spent there. So stores – both online and offline – do have knick-knacks that can fulfil this vacuum. Online stores have a slight edge over other stores as they can have a much larger inventory, have a smooth and easy navigation that guides you through a great browsing time, and even manage to give you a hearty discount as the over-heads will be less. Moreover, you can sit at home and browse or surf through hundreds of things without ending up with aching feet. By the way, going back to a product after you’ve travelled far from it is so much easier in an online store… just a couple of clicks or taps and you’re there!

One such store that I came across happens to be Make My Home, and a few of the things that I loved about this online shopping site happen to include:

1. Smooth and flawless navigation
2. Easy and relevant partitioning of product ranges
3. Transparency in pricing and discounts
4. Vibrant pictures of products
5. Precise description of products
6. Testimonials that are insightful
7. A to Z classification of products
8. Free shipping
9. Presence of recognisable brands

I pointed out these facts to Specky, my wife, and she immediately said, ‘Let’s start browsing!’ This was all I needed… and with a smile and a cuddle, we began our tour of the site.

Now let me tell you that we have more than 500 books in our home. Our walls have artworks created by people like Raseel Gujral. We love quirky things that have the innate power in them to induce creative thought even when there is a downward trend. Our browsing went on for a long time… no, not because it was hard finding our sort of things but because it was difficult to choose from the simply massive collection that covered contemporary, ethnic, casual, chic, spiritual, artistic, emotive, and even wild zones.

The three products that we finally zeroed in on were:

The Yellow Door Globe Bookends

The Yellow Door Globe Bookends

These Globe bookends made of iron have a pewter finish and I’m sure the books piled high on my study table was yahoo-ing with delight as we finalised it.

Chungi Lady Saint Art Print

Chungi Lady Saint Art Print

The caption read that ‘Benares plays the muse for this collection’… and Specky said, ‘This collection will play the muse for you!’ I know that the right sort of artwork on the wall does have an impact… and so the local woman in all her finery was in the ‘we will buy’ list.

Little India Beautiful Real Brass 1 Minute Real Sand Timer

Little India Beautiful Real Brass 1 Minute Real Sand Timer

‘A sand-timer is what I have wished for all these years,’ I said in excitement. Specky knew this, just as she knows almost everything about me, but then she went on to say, ‘This one deserves to be with us. This handcrafted one-minute timer has been made by the master artisans of Jaipur and I’ve already fallen in love with its image on the screen.’ So the third product was also finalised.

Were we happy with what we decided to purchase?

Well, we really did want to go on and buy a whole lot of other products but we first wanted the ones that we had selected to be delivered… our desire to see them on the table or on the wall was as intense as intense can ever be. We loved the way words like hand-crafted, artistic, eco-friendly, and chic hovered all over our decision.

‘I’m sure these will create that added dimension in home ambience,’ I said, and Specky simply nodded her head and murmured, ‘We’ll be back for more… soon enough.’

This post is a part of Makemyhome activity at BlogAdda.com

Arvind Passey
02 September 2014