Expansion of the Shop
​Our old home was connected to the main road, seperated with the inner city walls. For as long as I remember, It was always filled with people, merchants, labours, trucks and other transport vehicles. It being connected to the main road, there was always something that was going on, at one point we had to shift our room in the back of the house just to avoid constant honking of the vehicles and the shear constant movement made it impossible to spend some time in the verandah or our room.
The shop front, which was once a gathering space, now turned into an area purely for commerce, loads stacked. There was even a bed kind of structure present in the front, for people to sit upon and relax while catching up.
When I grew up and my mom started working, eventually the home became empty as it was just my grandmother who used to use the space for the entire day. After we moved out every part of the house was used as a stoarge unit and still continues to be so.
Around the 90s, there were around 30-40 people that were living in there. My father, his sisters, parents, uncles and aunt, etc,. The home stretched for a span of 30 meters and instead of the idea of a room, there were spaces for different functions. A big kitchen where the women usually spent their time and sometimes also used for sleeping. The shop, instead of being a space just for commerce it was a space for gathering, my grandfather’s freind circle was usually to be found there in the front of the shop. In fact the dealing of goods used to happen in the back side of the room, which then was leading to my granndparents sleeping area. The roads, not being filled with on going traffic for the whole day used to act as a bridge for connecting other homes and shops.
As the shop grew, and my father took over it, while trying to expand it, he asked my grandparents to shift to the first floor. Kitchens were seperated to make more rooms and free up space used as storage for grains.
As time went on, even the trucks were allowed to enter the tight street and park right infront of the shop, because its easier to unload than carrying the goods from the main road. Connection to the street was lost and being in the home meant just that, there was no way of getting out and experience the street like my father once did. In time people got married, my father’s uncles moved out in search of their own space, few taking up the land nearby in the same street while others moving out of the old city so as to avoid the hustle and bustle of the street all day long and live in peace.