I think the perfect way to start without actually starting, since my head is not really working today, would be to simply post something I had written for my college annual magazine-Reflections (2008-2009)

Changing house

Even before I grappled with the term ‘house’ and its various connotations and interpretations I saw my own firstly as a 400 sq.ft (only) area space and then as a stub-flat. The all important carpet area factor pops up in all conversations involving houses/flats after all and my parents are no exception. What I understood, from the discussions/lamentations my parents usually had about our house, was how it had been part of a much larger flat (610 sq.ft) as initially proposed by the builder.

Version 0.0- What my house should have been- ‘BUILDER’S PROPOSITION’

Due to financial constrains, we purchased only part of this flat and what was to be the living room was given off to someone else to run a typing institute. Which meant that my house was a stub. A part of it had been chopped off and given to someone else for an altogether different purpose.

I find it quite interesting that my parents could purchase only a part of a house. This allows me to imagine my house as a system of parts rather than a given complete-shell designed by someone else, which I may inhabit, but can only ‘decorate’.

Much like a machine, my house can then be re-organized within the limitations of the components and with time my house could change by using operations of addition, subtraction, etc. Also, this stub-machine-house could be upgraded with a version 0.something or other so that it would never be obsolete and would keep up with the myriad needs of its inhabitants.

My house has gone through several changes since the initial buying stage, some minor, some not so minor and here I view all these with this machine like imagination of my habitat.

Version 0.1- What ended up as our house- MAKING OF THE STUB

The cauterization at the moment of purchase left us with a house that had only a bedroom, a kitchen and a large passage. The need for another space which would serve as our living room meant we had to rework the allotted functional spaces to make room for one more room. The kitchen had no choice but to give in to our demands.

Version 0.2- What we made of our house

This lead to version 0.2 of my house. We now had a living room where our bedroom used to be, a bedroom where our kitchen was and a kitchen that shared space with the passage.

The house can be altered by means of reworking its internal organization, where spaces are simply renamed and hence reinvented.

The floods that devastated Mumbai in July 2005 became another reason for wanting to re-imagine my house. My mother who was already afraid of water had her paranoia taken to new heights with water entering our ground floor flat and destroying most of our things. Suddenly the perceived advantage of being on the ground floor floundered in the 3 feet of drain water and had my mom wishing for proximity to the skies.

What if my house could lift itself off the ground? What if the addition of parts meant something exterior? Where earlier the alterations/additions/ reshufflings were of the insides of the machine, what if the other type of change possible was external, something that would alter the entire relation of my house with the outside? And would at the same time manage to keep it dry.

The parts which could be added to the house need not be pre-existing parts and could be something that the design had made allowances for while keeping in mind possible future adaptations.

Version 0.?-New imaginations of my house- Stilted house for my mother

The fact remains that beyond a point I can’t change much in my house other than moving around furniture once in a while. Therefore, unlike the house of my imagination, the real one will be outdated soon and will have my family looking for a new place elsewhere. One which may or may not fulfill our ever growing desires.

But it probably won’t be a stub house and to my mind not as interesting either.