Home is where the today is
A blacksmith’s address in the city
The place where one lives permanently — that is home, according to Oxford dictionary.
In that case what is home to Ramesh Kumar who often shifts his address in the city?
The middle-aged blacksmith wonders aloud if a home can be the place of your ancestors. Or is it the place where you work? He is struggling with these thoughts on a hand-knitted string cot outside his improvised dwelling in Gurgaon’s Bhim Nagar. He is smoking a self-made hookah.
His current house comprises of a roadside camp. It is rustled out of plastic, plywood and cardboard, but crammed with so much homey furniture that it appears rooted to the place. He says he makes a living by making household kitchen equipments such as the metallic chimta. “There are many people of our profession in Gurgaon settled in different parts of the city.” Almost all of them live on the roadside, like him. And like him, they sell their auzar (tools) on the very place where they live, he says.
He asserts that the blacksmiths (like him) in Gurugram are from Rajasthan. “We are the santaan (descendants) of Maharana Pratap,” he says, referring to the 13th century king. He has never been to Chittorgarh, which “our great grandfathers left more than a century ago... we lived in the fort there.”
He himself was born in Delhi and has spent most of his life in Gurugram. While he realises that Chittorgarh is a night train away, he never felt the desire to visit it. “Gurgaon is the birthplace of my grandchildren.”
Now his wife, Kamla Devi, appears. Her face hidden behind a veil, she explains that “we are the Rajputs of Rajasthan.” Shaking his head, he remarks that today his people have no permanent dwelling. “Our home is this or that pavement.” Looking thoughtful, he declares, “Our des is neither Gurgaon nor Chittorgarh but the air, the sky, our work, and this chulha, this hookah…”