LOSING ONE’S HOME

On the 28th of March, 1995, a Mrs. Indu Vahi committed suicide by jumping from the 8th floor of Asia House, a building situated on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, quite close to Connaught Place, in New Delhi. As the chief newsreader in the Hindi Department of All India Radio, she had been allotted a two-room residential flat on the first floor of Asia House, which is a government building. When she retired last year at the age of sixty, she was required to give up this flat where she had lived for the last twenty years. The last date for vacating was the 31st of March.

Mrs. Vahi, widowed in 1989, became very depressed after retirement, even although she had the company of her daughter Sonia and her son-in-law, Ashok Kumar. According to The Hindustan Times (29 March 1995), she had purchased a house in Radio Colony, Trans-Yamuna, before her retirement. However, she reportedly felt deeply dejected about moving there—possibly due to the lack of civic amenities compared to her government-allotted residence, which was centrally located near the elegant shopping hub of Connaught Place. This feeling of despondency overwhelmed her to such an extent that she climbed to the top floor of Asia House and leapt to her death.

When I read this news item, I felt that it was indeed a tragic incident. Then I said to myself, “there was someone who could not bear the thought of shifting from a comfortable flat to a humble dwelling. But what of one’s condition if one were to be totally deprived of shelter?”

Even if people do not commit suicide, they still have to die. After death, the realization will come to them that all their possessions have suddenly been snatched away. On that day, every house owner will become homeless. Only those upon whom God looks with favour, those whom He grants an abode in Paradise, will ever again be householders.