August 14. “Button, my elder daughter is coming home today after almost 13 days of shooting.

She has already asked for her favorite dish to be cooked. Coincidentally, I was cooking the same dish she’s asked for!”

“How strange is that?”

“By the way, Dost is also on the same flight with her.”

“Have you told Mowgli that her mom is coming home?”

“I have. Let’s hear you describe home in one word.”

“Final Destination.”

“That’s very good. But in one word if you can.”

“You give it a try.”

“I’d say haven. Home is one place where one returns day after day from work, from travel, from fighting wars outside the four walls of a home for shelter, for love, for food, for understanding, for rest, for peace, for everything you don’t get when you’re not at home!”

That’s a nice word.”

“But a home can also break up families.”

“How?”

“It usually happens when children grow up and, at some point, want to do their own thing and want to go their separate ways. The more the number of children, the more the dispute. When daughters-in-law can’t get on with in-laws, the scene becomes very ugly. That is the reason why you don’t see joint families any more. Years back, the patriarch and the matriarch lived with their brood who got married and brought their wives home and they had children and the lineage carried on and on. These days, because of families splitting up, you have nuclear families which are small families consisting of the father, the mother and their offspring.”

“Which is the better one—the joint family or the nuclear family?”

“There’s nothing like better or worse. The point I am trying to make is that disputes are growing, more and more people aren’t seeing eye to eye and, that effort which was made earlier—say in joint families—to try and get along with each other at any cost—has disappeared entirely. People are getting impatient with each other. Hum do, humare do is the slogan.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the family consists of the couple and their two children. Besides this foursome, nothing else exists. It’s a very selfish view.”