Robert J. Flaherty, a yesteryear Hollywood film director, came to India in search of an actor to perform a vital role in his new film ‘Elephant Boy.’ He came across a 13 year old teenager named Sabu Dastagir, the son of a mahout, and cast him in his movie. The movie became very popular. Later, Dastagir acted in many films and became a world renowned actor. He migrated to London and later to the United States. He married an actress named Marilyn Cooper. He died in California at the age of 39.
In their memoirs, some of his friends recalled that Sabu used to spend his lonely hours with the animals in the zoos in London and the United States. It indicates that a jungle boy from a sylvan village in India, nurtured a secret desire to stay close to animals even after a long time since he left his native place.
This is what psychologists observe about this trait: “You can take a person out of the jungle, but you cannot take the jungle out of the person.” That means, you can take a person away from his home, but it is not easy to take his home out of his mind. Home is so closely connected to a person’s life. Whatever distance a person travels away from his home, the person will keep a secret desire to return home. However poor and shabby the condition of his home is, everyone wishes to come back to home. This desire intensifies as he grows old.
Recently, I happened to hear about a very old nun. During her advanced age, she was transferred to a nunnery near her home. During the hours of memory loss, she was found missing and eventually her co-nuns used to find her in her own ancestral home. When the nuns asked her: “Why do you go there now and then?” she used to reply, exposing her toothless gum: “I get an inexplicable joy when I am there!”
Home is a sweet memory for everyone. What makes a home so dear? It is nothing but the presence of one’s dear and near. When one starts losing one’s close bonds, the home also starts waning. It is the presence of our dear ones that induces us to go back to our homes. We never get elsewhere the joy, love and security which we experience when we are at home. So, all of us long for a homecoming.
In spite of all limitations, we always have a ‘space’ in our homes. A space where we are accepted as we are; where we can behave as we are. That is home.
All of us are imperfect in our homes. It may be because our home accepts us with all our imperfections. Some people leave their home when they feel that they are no longer accepted in their homes.
In the play called ‘A Doll’s House’ by Ibsen, the protagonist named Nora Helmer puts forward before her husband and children three reasons for her leaving the home: The first thing she says is that no one in that home speaks seriously. Secondly, she says that as days pass by, everyone in that home is alienated from each other. The third reason she says is that ‘What her husband needs is not her, but a doll who acts for his happiness.’ This is a plight that can happen to any home.
We should overcome the chances of our homes becoming a ‘doll’s house.’ We have the responsibility to safeguard our homes in these times, when the media steals our hearty family conversations, expressions of love, prayers and dining together. We should not forget this.
Each parents need to hold the hands of their children and return to the original holiness and goodness of our homes.
