This rented flat in my Kathmandu home (or house rather) is slowly turning into a family abode for me. The hallway, the restroom, the walls and the windows seem to be my own. But the realization that it is somebody else’s property where I can sojourn so long as I can afford to pay is a repellent to this ephemeral joy.
A house in this part of the world is a prime metaphor. It is a symbol of your social standing, masculinity, achievement, success and sometimes a fatal affliction. And in a place where a piece of land that you purchase today may cost five times more the next month, making a house of your own means next to achieving a feat. The obsession for a house has driven men to unethical modes of earnings. Remember those officers and assistant-level government employees nabbed and probed by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority a few years ago? They had been prosecuted, partly, for their madness for erecting mansions out of embezzled money from the state coffers. And politicians have not abstained from this malady either. From members of parliament to the ministers in the government, they have not failed to get a house built for themselves.
Considering this fact, most Nepali politicians are successful. Let’s deduct a passing inference from this; if the infliction of possessing a house is cured from the Nepali psyche, Nepali politics and society could be made less corrupt.
In the Nepali context, a home or ghara—whatever the appellations—largely means a house. We are born, brought up and grow old with the persistent consciousness of having to own a house. Two things a marda (man) should do, so decrees a Nepali adage, to prove his masculinity are to get married and build a house of his own. Building a house thus goes in metonymy with masculinity. Think how a youth spends the most creative, progressive and productive time, between his twenties and forties, of his life contriving for means to build a house. It is in this period that one could become or decide to become somebody in future—a litterateur, a poet, a writer, a researcher, a scholar or a luminary. But this bigger mission of building a house of his own comes his way. So, as soon as he is capable of holding a job for himself or just capable of earning, by whatever means, he has to save enough money for building a house. And this is deemed just, for ours is a society that cares less about how you have earned and with what ethics but more about whether you have a house of your own.
Come to think of it. If I were not to worry about building a house, if I were to be free of this occasional apprehension that my landlord may force me out one day and, consequently, I will have to wander the Kathmandu streets looking for another shelter, I would perhaps be doing some research or devote my time in writing or reading. Most Nepalis get no opportunity to divert their minds into productive activities but into making a house and managing daily meals. I have known people toiling hard to buy a piece of land so that they could lay the foundation of a house there.
It makes sense to argue in favor of having one’s own house too. The rent you pay to the landlord throughout your life can equal the total expense of making a good house of your own. You cannot deny the fact that no matter how long you have been in a rented flat, you feel like a stranger there, the way my little niece has begun to. And besides, not having one’s own house sometimes costs the prospect of marriage dear. A journalist friend of mine has been considered an ineligible bachelor by all the “good” matches that have come his way. “Do you have a house of your own in Kathmandu? They ask me,” he says, “and when I say no they cease to negotiate further.”
In every middleclass Nepali, struggling to earn his living through fair and honest means and yet committed to “mission house,” I see the fate of Mr. Biswas, the protagonist of V S Naipaul’s well-acclaimed novel A House for Mr. Biswas. Mr. Biswas has the fondest desire of providing for his family in the modern way, especially by purchasing a house of his own. He struggles through a series of unrewarding jobs. Finally, he succeeds despite all odds. But then he dies. Mr. Biswas is a tragic hero. I don’t see myself different if I choose to succumb to this mania. And un/luckily, I do not see myself alone in the boat.
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