Home sweet home

What do you choose?

A house. A home. Two simple words. Considered synonymous. However, they carry different meanings. A house is made of brick and mortar but a home is made of hopes and dreams. We all know that, don’t we?

But I would dare to disagree. I think a house is not different from a home. At least not in the modern world.

Don’t get me wrong!

A house is supposed to protect us from elements, while a home is where happiness is nurtured. 

Therefore, a house is a house until a family starts living in it. Our love for each other, our hopes and aspiration, our care and concern for each other transforms a house into a home – sweet home, in fact.

But the sweet homes were built long before the modern gadgets were introduced. People used to live together and make merry with their family until electronic gadgets came in vogue. Earlier family was a priority. Now it appears that a home is nothing more than a house thanks to television and smartphone.

At dinner table we interact with our friends and colleagues through smartphone and, in turn, we tend to ignore our family members sitting around us at the dinner table. Our guests too start fiddling with gadgets rather than conversing with their host. And hosts don’t mind as if it has become a kind of norm.

I have noticed that the rise of the smartphone has created a nasty dent in the world called family. Now a sweet home is turning into a house without people realising it.

The warmth and love one used to feel sitting with one’s family beside the hearth during the freezing nights, hearing the peaceful crackle of the burning fire is no longer found in many houses.

Let’s find out ways to change our ways and work hard to convert a house into a home. Then only we’ll be able to sings songs like: “Home! Sweet Home!” or “Country Roads Take Me Home.”

(Published in The Gulf Today on October 1, 2016)