The other day my wife was showing me pictures of luxury homes across the world. I just don’t understand why on earth would people need such big houses? Well, if they have the money then they might want to flaunt it but at the end of the day you just need a bed and it doesn’t matter if it is made of gold or just straw. 

My wife usually shows me picture of jewelry and I do understand that she wants me to buy the item or something similar. I tell her that people should not wear expensive jewelry because masked thieves on motorcycles can easily snatch it away on our way to the party palaces. 

But when it comes to luxury homes, I know that even though we do not have the money to afford such homes, it is her dream to build a mini-palace someday. I don’t know if that day will ever come but I guess it’s always good to dream. I tell my wife that we don’t need to dream of building a palace because we don’t have a king anymore and even though the Jyotish Baba told my wife a few years ago that she would be a maharani, that doesn’t mean, she is going to be the queen of Nepal in the future unless she somehow manages to take over the country, boot all our corrupt folks out of the country and then proclaim herself the ruler of the land. 

I tell her that what the astrologer meant was that she would get married and her husband would treat her like a maharani. She then shows me her ring and tells me that if I had treated her like a queen that she would have a much bigger diamond ring than the one she is currently wearing. I change the topic and go back to looking through the luxury home pictures.

I tell her that you need to be either Donald Trump or a mob boss to build such homes. She then tells me that not all people who are successful in life and have the money need to be a shady businessman or a criminal. I tell her to look around. The only people who can afford anything in this country are mostly our politicians, business people, and civil servants. Well, there are some who have done pretty well for themselves by starting their own enterprises and there are some who are lucky enough to inherit tons of land and they can sell it piece by piece to fund their luxurious lifestyle until everything runs out.

My wife wants to buy a ropani of land and build our dream home in the future. I tell her that the land prices are crazy in this country and the only place we can afford a ropani of land with the cash we have in the bank right now is somewhere in the remote hills of Lalitpur. We will probably have to hike for a day just to get there. I have been a Lalitpur resident all my life but it’s sad that we still have places where there are no roads and basic infrastructure in our own district. It’s even more remote that some of the hilly areas of our country.

My wife and I have been married for three years now and our saving is enough to buy maybe a few annas of land, that to in the outskirts of the valley. I tell her to wait for another five years and maybe by then we could afford to build a small cozy cottage up in the hills of Lalitpur. It would be fun to take a local bus till the place where the road ends and then walk for a few hours or half a day and then enjoy the bonfire and BBQ at the cottage. My wife loves anything barbequed but when it comes to our dream home, she will not settle for a cozy little cottage. 



I tell my wife that all we need is a kitchen, a living room, a store room, few bedrooms and two bathrooms. One bathroom will be so-called western, where you can do your business while reading the business section of the daily newspaper and the other bathroom should be eastern, our traditional style, where you squat and meditate while doing your business. 

I even show her few YouTube clips where they say that the squatting style is the right way while the ‘western’ style is not.  She tells me that she did not show me the pictures of the luxury homes to talk about bathrooms and if squatting is better or sitting. She wants me to look at the pictures and plan further on how we can make more money and save as much as possible so that in a few years, we can afford to buy some land, build a nice beautiful home maybe not like the ones Donald Trump owns in Florida but at least a home.  

I remember a sign at the coffee shop in my neighborhood and quickly scroll through the pictures on my phone because I knew I had taken a photo of that sign. The sign read ‘A house is made of walls and beams but a home is made of love and dreams’. I then blurt out the message as if I just made it up right then and there. She was impressed and she will be until she reads this column. Or maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to hide the newspaper. Maybe take it to the bathroom to read it and then flush it down our ‘modern seating’ toilet.  

The writer is a house husband who believes in changing, if not the world, the community he lives in one person at a time.

 
• dream home
 
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