Where owners come like guests
Ravinder Banwait

An NRI’s mansion on the outskirts of Nawanshahr — Photo by the writer

LAND of the rich and old — this is perhaps the exact definition of the Doaba area. Though prosperity has made inroads into the region but most of its youth is residing elsewhere to earn money, while the aged parents have been left behind to reside in palatial homes. You will find that for the past decade or so a large number of mansions have come up in villages as well as on the outskirts of cities. The foreign money — dollars and pounds — have given a strong foundation to these beautifully built houses. As expected, these houses belong to non-resident Indians and it is their old parents who are spending the sunset years of their lives in these golden shells. In fact, they are more or less the keepers of these houses.

The trend of building big houses started in the eighties. At that time a house worth Rs 1 lakh (excluding land price) was considered first class in villages here but now it is normal to invest from Rs 15 lakh to 50 lakh on the construction. The house is counted among the "good ones" if it has been built with Rs 50 lakh or more. Besides having the basic facilities like water and sewer system, the occupants enjoy the luxury of living in well-furnished rooms and having a chauffeur-driven car.

These mansions are mostly in villages or on the outskirts of cities. There are two reasons for that: one, the land prices are comparatively low there; second, the houses are away from congested cities.

These mansions rarely see their owners as these are merely used as holiday homes by them. The owners come only once a year or so and that too only for a few days or maybe at most a month. The houses are usually left in the care of their old parents.

The parents, however, do not express any regret about their children living away from them. Perhaps, they have compromised with the circumstances.

Kartar Kaur (80), who resides in one such mansion along with her husband on the Saloh road on the outskirts of Nawanshahr and whose children have settled down abroad, explains that though she and her husband miss their children but nothing can be done about it because they have their business abroad. "We keep in touch with them over phone and have thrice visited them in America. They too come here. Recently, my son came here to marry off his daughter," she says, adding that both she and her husband face no problem because they have a servant to look after the house as well as cook food for them. They also have a chauffeur-driven vehicle. They like to spend their free time at the gurdwara and once in a fortnight go to their village, Lasara.

Similar views are expressed by Surjit Kaur (75) of Daulatpur village in Nawanshahr, who has her two sons living abroad. She has a three-kanal granite covered mansion in the village and has visited England several times where her sons have been living for the past 25 years. Stating that there is no place like India, she stresses that there may be money and cleanliness in England, but there is no social life there. Whenever she goes abroad, her sister’s family looks after the house.

Some owners, however, in the absence of their parents, prefer to keep their houses closed or under the care of servants who are mostly from Bihar or U.P. This is done out of fear that relatives may try to grab the property they are requested to look after. A girl from a village near Banga, on the condition of anonymity, discloses that her father-in-law left his house and other property under the supervision of his elder brother but when they returned after five years, the brother refused to part with the property and it was only after intervention of some other relatives that the problem got sorted out. "So now we have locked the house and given the farms on theka (contract)," she adds.

There are also some NRIs who are choosing to sell their houses because their children, who have been born and brought up abroad, do not wish to visit India. The children do not have any emotional bonding with India. Dr Jaswant Rai Dhawan, a doctor in Langroya village, says one of his NRI friends who had a beautiful house worth Rs 60 lakh on the Kulam road in Nawanshahr sold it for just Rs 40 lakh because his children, who had been in Canada for the past two decades, refused to come back here.

In order to overcome this problem, a lot of NRIs have started sending their children to Punjab for their studies since they feel that is the only way their children will learn about their culture and roots. Promilla, a government teacher, maintains that many of her NRI friends have settle down in Mohali in order to complete the studies of their children and on weekends they visit their respective villages. This certainly seems like a good beginning made to keep Punjabi culture rich and alive.