“Home” by Chetan Sankar

When I was discharged from the hospital in Jan. 2019 after my near-death experience (NDE), the doctor told me:

“Hospitals are not places to rest. You better go home and recover.”

I responded: “Won’t it be better to be here where I can get quality care and help if I have an emergency?”

Doctor: “You need rest after your ordeal. Your body and mind are worn out. Be at home, rest, eat tasty food, go for walks, and recover. The peace at home would benefit you.”

Only then I noticed that the lights in the hospital hallways were never turned off, the nurses were there in my room every three hours to take readings and thereby disturbing my sleep, and there was tell-tale anxiety in the patients’ and nurses’ faces.

I asked my wife: “Lakshmi, I have been in the hospital for the past seven days and I am ready to leave. Let us go to our house.”

 “No, let us leave for our home.”

“What is the difference between a house and a home?”

“A house is a building where we live. A home is where we feel we belong; we feel comfortable there. I want you to rest in our beautiful home and recover fully.”

As per the doctor’s advice, Lakshmi, and I returned to our comfortable home in Decatur, Georgia, even though I was still sore and uncomfortable. I rested the next few months, had nutritious food, consulted with specialists, changed our lifestyle, walked in the neighborhood, and slowly recovered.  As I was enjoying the comforts of my home, I recollected how we had lived in many houses in India and in the USA. Renting or acquiring each of them required substantial effort and finances. Some of them were barely adequate and others were spacious. Adequacy of living space, affordability, comfort, memorable events, and feeling of security associated with each house influenced whether I considered it as a home or not.

Parental Home

In the 1940s, after their marriage, my parents lived in a home located in a tiny lane in Mylapore, India right after their marriage. This home was owned by my grandfather and was near the Parthasarathy (Krishna) temple. This was an old neighborhood where the roads were narrow, and traffic was congested.

They lived in a townhouse built adjacent to each other, and about ten houses occupied the space in the lane. You can only walk through the lane; no cars can enter it. The rectangular house had a front porch for people to rest in hot weather. A well was in the middle of the house surrounded by an open courtyard all around it. A toilet and bathroom were next to the well. There were several rooms on the side of the courtyard and my parents occupied one of them. My dad’s sisters and aunt occupied the rest of the rooms. Privacy for the couple was limited to living inside the room; all other space was shared. Everyone shared the kitchen.

Childhood Homes in Rural India

I was born and lived in rented houses when my father worked as a sub-magistrate in various small towns in the State of Tamilnadu, India, from 1950 to 1975. I remember the home we lived in Pudukkottai when I was ten years old. Pudukkottai (means new fort) was ruled by a King until India’s independence in 1950 and the fort was at the center of the city. Streets emanated in four directions from the fort and were named based on the directions (such as North 3^rd Street, South 4^th street etc.).

We occupied a house where the Magistrates traditionally used to reside. Since the Magistrates were selected based on their qualifications and not based on their religion or caste, we invariably found ourselves with neighbors who were Hindus, Muslims, or Christians. They ate meat and dishes that were vastly different from the vegetarian dishes my mom made. We used to play with their children and thereby grew up in a diverse community. When we moved in, my mom made a lot of effort to convert it into a home filled with laughter, joy, love, and hard work.

The house was old, sprawling and was divided into large rooms. Many of the rooms were open and all of us shared them. There were windows in every room that let in the sunlight and the breeze. Each room had a light and a fan. The kitchen was in the back of the house and required wood to burn as fuel; in the rainy season, they did not light up quickly. If you turned off the stove, then you had to light it up again in the evening. The kitchens were dark places full of smoke, and the walls were black due to the soot. My mom had more than ten people to feed and was busy cooking food constantly. My dad gave her funds to run the house each month; it was not sufficient given the prohibitive cost of food items in India at that time. Toward the end of the month, she would invariably run short of funds even though she was economical. The tropical weather was hot and sultry, and it made the kitchen hot and humid. Without a refrigerator, vegetables and fruits rotted if not used quickly. My parents worked hard to make this a comfortable home for their children.

Kolkata, Apartment Homes

I pursued my graduate work at IIM Calcutta and worked there from 1971 to 1976. Kolkata was a sprawling city situated on the banks of the river Hooghly and had one of the largest populations in the country. Most people lived in apartments that were multi-storied, small, and had interior plumbing and electricity. I shared apartments with other friends from IIMC during my career at Kolkata. We used to rent furniture thereby minimizing the need for carrying a lot of items when we moved. I did not feel emotionally tied to any of these places since I considered them as places to rest in the night and did not pay much attention to their upkeep.

In 1974, a friend of mine introduced me to a family who lived in an apartment that was part of a large house in South Kolkata. We walked to their home from our apartment through the busy Rash Behari Avenue. The road was bustling with buses, cars, and hand rickshaws. The pavements were occupied by vendors who were selling assorted goods. We maneuvered through them and came to Triangular Park and took a left. I soon saw a house that occupied a city block and was built up to the road; there was no greenery or space around the house. My friend explained that the property was a large zamindar’s (landlord’s) property built in 1920s. This property had a large rectangular area in the middle that had no roof and around which rooms were built at two levels. In the course of time, the property was sub-divided into many apartments and were rented out to people. Even though the rent was comparatively inexpensive, the tenants paid to get all repairs done to keep the property in good condition. There were other apartments and shops on that property.

We stopped before a locked gate. My friend rattled the lock and soon a lady came out and opened the gate. She introduced herself and told us to come inside. There was a veranda where we left our shoes. On entering the apartment, I saw a large room where two of her sisters were playing carrom (a game like billiard). The sisters asked us to join in the game and we did. Their mother came from the adjoining kitchen and brought us some snacks to eat. I stayed there for an hour and felt that I had found another family in Kolkata. The sisters and mom were hospitable and treated us with respect and affection. They were from South India but had settled in Kolkata for the past fifty plus years. They spoke Tamil (my native language), Hindi, and Bengali (the local language). Their genuineness and knowledge of Kolkata impressed me. My friend and I left after a few hours to have our dinner in a nearby restaurant.

Subsequently, I visited them often as I missed being in a family environment. Their cousin, Lakshmi, lived with her parents in another apartment in the same house. Their apartment was on the second floor and the mothers (who were sisters) would talk to each other through the open veranda. I became friends with all of them since it was a family that valued relationships, treated people well, and had converted these old broken-down apartments into veritable homes. In course of time, Lakshmi and I became engaged to each other resulting in our marriage in March 1977.

After our marriage, we rented a ground floor apartment of a two-story building owned by a bank employee. This was an independent house, about ten miles away from Kolkata in a place called Thakurpukur close to my place of work, IIM Calcutta. There was no city water or sewage. A septic tank took care of the sewage. Water had to be brought from the nearby pond. A laborer used to come to our apartment with two tin cans hanging on his shoulder balanced on a wooden beam. He would go to the pond, fill water in these tin cans, and pour them into the storage vats we had in our bathroom. He would also get us drinking water from a hand pump connected to a borewell that drew untreated groundwater stored in aquifers. Lakshmi’s mom would take a bus and come to the home to help her daughter and interact with us. Lakshmi and I enjoyed living in this first home after our marriage.

Philadelphia: Apartment Homes

I lived on a student stipend when I moved to Philadelphia in 1977 to pursue my doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. When Lakshmi joined me in May 1978, I rented an efficiency apartment (250 square feet) in West Philadelphia. There were stores on the ground floor of the complex and we climbed a set of stairs to get to the second floor where our apartment was located. There were two apartments on each floor. As you exited the stairs, there was a small landing that led to the doors of both apartments. As we opened our apartment door, there was a living room with a tiny kitchen. One small bathroom adjoined the living area. As we walked out of this room, we entered a bedroom. The bedroom had multiple windows that overlooked the roof and other apartments. I bought inexpensive furniture from second-hand shops and porch sales. Lakshmi worked hard to convert this apartment into our home. Unfortunately, when I told my landlord that we were expecting a baby in 1979, he increased the rent by 20%. Since we did not have the funds to pay the additional rent, we moved to a vacant apartment of the same size in the next building.

Frank, the landlord was an elderly man, and used to visit the property every other day and would tinker with the heating system, hot water system, etc., continually as he performed all the repairs himself. We were never sure when he would turn off one of them inadvertently and I had to locate him to get it started again. I learned rudimentary knowledge about the construction methods, heating systems, hot water systems, etc., by observing him repair the old equipment.

Our apartment had peeling paint and I requested Frank to fix it. He told me that he would buy the materials, but we must supply the labor. In our enthusiasm, we requested him to get wallpaper with patterns so that we could make our living room lively. He got us rolls of wallpaper and glue. Lakshmi and I started to cut and paste the wallpaper on the wall. We had no understanding of how to do so and did not match the patterns as we pasted them on the wall. We were pleased with our efforts until a visitor pointed out how the patterns did not match. We had to live with this mismatched wallpaper pattern for the next four years. The apartment was barely adequate for us and in an area that was not safe. Akila, our daughter, started her life in this apartment in 1979. The neighbors were poor, friendly, and helpful.

The apartment got more crowded when my parents came to visit us in 1980 and cared for Akila so that Lakshmi could pursue her master’s degree at Temple University. The University of Pennsylvania was within walking distance of the apartment (about half a mile), and it was a convenient location. Even though it was a cramped space, we made this our home since it provided space for our family to bond and grow.

After we both got jobs in 1981 after graduation, Lakshmi urged me to buy a house in the neighborhood. I resisted it and did not buy a house, but we looked at several houses with a realtor.

During 1982, we went to see an open house at Upper Darby, a nearby locality, and the realtor told us that it was an estate sale, and the property would be available for $15,000. It was a two-bedroom, one bath house. He took us to his office thinking that he could convince us to buy the house. He checked our finances and told us that we qualified for a 30-year mortgage loan since we had saved the required down payment of $3,000, the monthly payment was less than 30% of my monthly income, and we had no debt. Lakshmi and the realtor tried to convince me to sign the paperwork, but I was afraid to take on such a loan. I was risk averse and intimidated by the paperwork that needed to be signed. All we ended up doing was to take a train from his office to come to our apartment. Even though Lakshmi did not agree with me, she went with my decision of not purchasing a house and continued to dwell in our rented apartment in West Philadelphia.

During April 1982, I heard a loud noise from the bathroom. Lakshmi came rushing out telling me that the ceiling had fallen; fortunately, she was not hurt. We found out that the Ethiopians upstairs were using their bathroom as a salon and let water accumulate on the bathroom floor without knowing that it would leak through, damage the drywall, and let it crash down. This prompted me to look for an apartment in the suburbs and we rented one in Drexel Hill where our friends lived.

Philadelphia Suburb Apartment Home

We rented a two-bedroom one bath apartment on the second floor in a large rental complex. What fascinated me was the large amount of grass that surrounded the apartments and the property. The greenery had me mesmerized and I was willing to stay there, even though our commuting time increased by another twenty minutes. It looked like the perfect place to raise a child with a nearby park, trails, and open spaces. Even though this was the first time Lakshmi had left the concrete jungles in Kolkata and Philadelphia, she enjoyed the greenery, flowers, and felt safe. Our son Shiv was born while living in this apartment home during 1983. We lived in such rental complexes until we left Pennsylvania for New Jersey in 1985.

First Home in New Jersey: Hope and Fear

I changed my job to work at AT&T Bell Laboratories at Holmdel, New Jersey. We rented an apartment in Matawan, NJ. We found that the apartment owners were more pleasant to deal with than in Philadelphia. We met my colleagues who had bought houses in nearby areas, and this emboldened me to look to purchase a house. We looked for houses situated in good school districts so that our children could attend public schools.

We saw a house in Ocean Township, New Jersey. It was in a reasonable condition but needed some work. The school district was excellent. The realtor pushed us to make an offer quickly at the asking price and we ended up doing so. The mortgage process was so backed up that Lakshmi had to drive up to the company’s offices to get the paperwork for us to close on the house in Dec. 1987. It was a three-bedroom, two-bath house and had shady trees. I was panicking and kept checking the paperwork and the mortgage schedule carefully to ensure that I made a reasonable financial decision. We enjoyed living in this home and the children relished attending the local schools.

AT&T was going through major changes due to deregulation and it looked like my job might be at risk. Therefore, during 1989, I accepted an offer from Auburn University, Alabama for a faculty position; Lakshmi also got a teacher position in Auburn school district. I had a difficult time parting with our New Jersey home. We rented it and moved into an apartment in Auburn.  

During 1990, our tenants did not pay rent for two months and gave one excuse or another. We had to travel to New Jersey to evict them in Summer 1990 and rented it to another person with the proviso that they could buy it if they liked it within a year. They bought it in 1991 at our purchase price. Even though I lost financially, I learned a valuable lesson that it was difficult to manage properties from a distance. This experience helped us learn that real-estate is a risky investment where values fluctuate. There is potential for making capital gains or losses when selling a house. It is a home when we live in it, but once we move out it becomes a house.

Building a Home in Alabama

Houses in Auburn were priced about 25% lower than in New Jersey and some of our new friends had built their homes and they encouraged us to follow suit. We looked at several house plans from books and picked one that we liked. I pre-qualified for a home loan from my local bank once I told them that I would put down 20% as a down payment and that I had above average credit rating.

We met with several builders in 1990 and selected a local builder. He was excited to see the plan since he had never built that style of a house. He helped us modify the plan to meet our needs and built a beautiful 2,500 square feet house for us in the Shelton Mills subdivision in a six-month period. We learned a lot about construction and mortgage processes through this acquisition. Getting the mortgage for this house was a lot easier since we had established our credit rating and had a steady income.

We lived in this 2,500 sq ft house for ten years. I enjoyed the extra space this house provided us to accommodate our parents who visited from India and occasional guests. Our children got their own bedrooms and were excited about it. I was able to convert a small bedroom upstairs into my office and was delighted that it overlooked our rose garden in the backyard. We have happy memories of living in this home where both our children grew up to become adults.

Lake Home in Alabama

I liked water and wanted to buy a cabin at Lake Martin, about thirty miles away from Auburn. We bought a small cabin at Jacksons Gap, Alabama in 2002. I was thrilled to own this cabin since it gave me the opportunity to own a boat and enjoy the lake.

We got our Auburn house painted during December 2002 and Lakshmi wanted a realtor to provide us with a sale estimate for our house. The realtor told us she had a potential buyer and would be able to sell our house at a price that was 50% higher than our purchase price. We were tempted by her suggestion and signed an agreement with her. She got the buyer to look at the house and they bought it instantly. We sold this house and moved to our lake cabin in Feb. 2003. Unexpectedly, we were living in the lake house full time and that made me feel as though I was having a vacation and going to work. Both our children were in college and this cabin was adequate for both of us.

Having worked for fourteen years as a teacher, Lakshmi wanted to move to a leadership position, and it was difficult to get one at Auburn. After working for a year at Fayetteville, Georgia, Lakshmi got a job as the Director of Special Education at LaGrange, Georgia. We had to find a new place to live since our workplaces were about fifty miles apart.

Lakshmi found from her friends that there was another lake, Lake Harding, where we could buy a house and this was located half-way between Auburn and LaGrange. Only issue was that most of the lake lots were owned by Georgia Power Company and were leased to owners for 15-year renewable terms. People built homes on these leased lots. This meant that we would own the house, but the lot belonged to Georgia Power, and they could cancel the lease after the 15-year period bankrupting people’s investments in the homes. We decided to take a gamble and looked for houses.

We bought a 4,000 sq ft house in early 2007. This house had a magnificent view of the lake. It was built as a cabin by the first owner, then extended on one side by the next owner, and then on the other side by the third owner. Therefore, the house did not flow well, but was large. We did renovations to the house and occupied it in Summer 2007.

Our neighbors were professionals who worked in Columbus, GA. This made us feel comfortable moving to this house even though it was in a rural area. The lake level did not go down during winter months and we were able to enjoy the lake throughout the year. The property had more than one hundred trees and it was a pleasure to stay there.

The home had a large deck that overlooked the large body of water. We celebrated my sixtieth birthday and a reception for Shiv’s marriage in this home. We rented tables and chairs and converted the outdoor space to a beautiful setting overlooking the water. Our daughter Akila and her husband, Patrick, helped us decorate the deck, giving it a festive look. We got food catered for both occasions from Auburn and the guests enjoyed the scenery and the company.

Given that we were living in a lake home, we put our Lake Martin cabin up for sale and sold it in 2008 for a good capital gain just before the real estate market collapsed.

Atlanta Homes

Our daughter, Akila, who lived in Atlanta informed us that she was pregnant in 2012 and expected a baby by June 2013. We were thrilled and wanted to be near Akila, her husband, and the baby so that we could visit and help them. As Lakshmi and I were getting older, we had to think of where we would stay after retirement. Atlanta looked like an ideal location since Akila lived there, it had an excellent airport, and provided access to reputable hospitals Therefore, we bought a house in Decatur, Georgia, in April 2013 so that we could visit our granddaughter every weekend. The real-estate market was depressed, and we were able to buy a 2,500 sq ft home for a reasonable price and a low mortgage rate.

We furnished the Lake Harding and Decatur homes so that it was convenient for us to commute between the two locations. It took us two hours to drive between the two homes and we found it to be worthwhile given that we enjoyed spending time with our grandchild and her parents.

Lakshmi decided to retire from her director job at LaGrange during 2015 and got a job at the Georgia Department of Education based in Atlanta. Therefore, she started to live in Atlanta in the middle of 2015.

During Fall 2016, Akila was expecting her second baby and told me that it would be convenient if I could assist her after the baby was born. I was getting tired of the commute and there were many changes at Auburn University at that time and I was getting frustrated in dealing with new sets of bosses. Therefore, I retired in December 2016 and moved to my Atlanta home. Unfortunately, my retirement plans were interrupted by health issues. Several of the arteries in my heart had major blocks and the cardiologist recommended that I have surgery.

I had an open-heart surgery in Dec 2018 that resulted in a Near-death experience. Fortunately, I recovered. This shook my confidence and we resolved to consolidate our homes. We wanted to focus our lives on service to people and simplify our lifestyle. Therefore, we sold our Lake Harding house during 2019, even though we lost significant money in the deal. We also realized that our Decatur house was not that convenient during sickness since there were no bedrooms. at the main level. Therefore, we sold that house and built a new house in Avondale Estates so that we could live near our children and grandchildren. We allocated a bed room for our grandchildren and have the pleasure of seeing them sleep over in this home and spend quality time with us.

Near-Death Experience: Everybody Needs Homes

            During July 2022, Shiv was provided an option by his employer to relocate and he and his wife, Deepa, relocated from New Jersey to Atlanta and chose to build a house close to where we live. Therefore, all the four grandchildren now live within fifteen minutes commute for us. This has made our life very blessed and contented and our home ideal for fostering family ties.

As I reflect on my good fortune in living in comfortable homes, it is sad to note that many people do not have access to quality housing. According to Habitat for Humanity, around 40 percent of the population of fast-growing cities in developing countries is housed in squatter settlements without basic services. In October 2023, over 170,000 people applied for Georgia’s housing voucher program for potential 13,000 spots showing the need for affordable homes in the USA[i].

Having access to quality affordable housing is fundamental to reducing poverty, improving equal opportunities, and guaranteeing sustainable growth. Over half of US households cannot afford a $250,000 home, while the median home price nationwide is $408,100. Eleven million Americans spend over 50 percent of their income on rent[ii].” Policies to mitigate the housing crisis include upzoning (allowing multi-units instead of single homes), allowing migrant laborers to help build homes, providing financial incentives for home ownership, creating commercial properties to increase tax revenue, and creating down payment assistance programs.

Having bought and sold houses, I have learned that it is critical to savesufficient funds to afford a down payment and then buy a house with a mortgage. Saving a percentage of our income every month for a few years and investing it in interest-bearing savings accounts helped us accumulate sufficient funds for the down payment. Buying a house lets us build an asset with the potential to grow in value. I have found that it takes love, care, planning, and financial resources to convert a house to a tranquil home so that we can provide shelter to our family, nurture our minds toward positive thoughts and uplift our spirits by interacting with family and neighbors in a congenial environment.

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[i] https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/thousands-apply-georgia-housing-choice-voucher-program/85-1b98bee4-5d60-46a0-ab00-cd88190f09e6

[ii] R. Raisner and K. Bracken, “Here are Five Policies to Solve the Global Housing Crisis,” World Economic Forum, Mar 24, 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/how-to-solve-the-global-housing-crisis/

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