Living accommodation
Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.
At a very early stage in life of man on this earth, it had been said that man needs three basic requirements and those were enumerated as a house, clothes and food. And in spite of lapse of centuries, these basic demands are still there, though we have brought so many other demands and without the fulfillment of those demands, we have started thinking that we are still poor and unlucky persons.
Here we are talking of living accommodation that is the house. The man on this earth has already left behind his jungle and mountain life and now he has created so many things with which he can construct a living accommodation for himself and for his family. But the tragedy with the man is still there because in spite of all the materials on his command, he is not having a living accommodation which could be called a living accommodation. In all the countries are still found living in accommodations which are not fulfilling their minimum requirements. They are not living a happy life in the houses in which they are living, because the house provided to them are lacking the following provisions:-
(1) Each couple present in the house is not having a separate room where they could keep their privacy and each child is not having his own separate room to which he could call his own room and keep the same as per his or her own desires. Most of the people in most of the countries are living in one-room house or in two-room houses where they are not having any privacy and therefore, they live like animals. Even the states could not provide living accommodations to the people of their countries. Most of the accommodations provided by the state are not fulfilling these minimum demands and those are provided to the employees as per his or her rank and in this way people who are in lower ranks are having accommodations which are not able to call themselves as living accommodation.
(2) This is not good when rich and powerful people are having their colonies separately from those who are poor and weak people. In India people who are called dalits are not allowed to have accommodations in those colonies which are meant for rich and powerful people or for people who are calling themselves as belonging to rich and of higher classes. And we note that the houses owned by the rich, powerful and by people who are from higher classes have good looking houses while houses of poor, dalits and weak people are not good looking houses.
(3) When we talk of other provisions like fans, cooler, air conditioners, bathrooms, toilets, rooms, furniture, kitchen, store, verandah, kitchen garden good open yard are not available in the houses and only some of the people could provide these provisions in the house.
(4) In most of the houses the people are not having a separate kitchen and thus the smoke is available in each article in the house including clothes which are hung in the room.
(5) There is no separate accommodation for old and elderly people in the house. The bed rooms, the drawing rooms which had been constructed by those people when they were young and they were planning the house have been snatched away by the children and now most of the old and elderly people are accommodated in the space near doors or they are given some place on the roof from where even their voice could not be heard by those who are living in the ground floor. Such a treatment is given to the old and the elderly because the youths are not having their own accommodation. The state must come for the help of these old and elderly people in the house so that they may be able to wait for their death easily.
(6) It must be accepted that children are not provided living accommodation as per their demand and as per their requirements. They must have separate rooms where they should be provided with reading and study facilities. There should be proper light, air and even water should be available in the room.
(7) Each living room must have attached bath room and toilet so that they members living in the room could have their own privacy and they may not be standing in line before the bathroom and before the toilet. If we examine the living accommodations in the world, we shall find that very few people are lucky who could get such accommodation in the house.
(8) Each house must have a small garden.
(9) Each house must have place where clothes could be spread for drying in Sun because this is most important and where such open space is not available, the clothes washed shall not be getting proper Sun light and most of the germs shall remain in the clothes.
(10) There should be space for vehicles so that those could be kept safe and should not be standing outside the house having encroachment on municipal land.
People who live in houses which are not provided with all these facilities are often either sad or mad and they do not behave properly. They are not in a position to have ain introspection and that is the reason they are not in a position to correct themselves That is the reason they do not get time and space to study, to write something, to have a look on the TV or listen to radio. Such people do not remain normal people and they are not progressive in nature. They are not fertile brain and we should not expect much from such people. Therefore, time has come when each family and each government must start from the house and they must make it sure that their people are getting proper accommodation and if they do not pay heed towards this problems, a time shall come when they shall be having all backward and brainless people with them. A good and proper accommodation is the first need of a society which wants to go ahead and take the people in the next phase of life. The present system where even the states themselves are not providing the people with reasonable accommodation are committing a grave crime with humanity because only animals could be collected in such like shed. If we take that we are men and women, then we should live in reasonable accommopdations.
These are the minimum requirements which a living accommodation must provide to the owners of the house and if they are not in a position to have such spaces and items in their house, they shall never admit that they are having a good living accommodation. People like in India would never be able to provide such complete accommodation tot heir people and these facilities shall be in luck of those who own money and who own seats of power. The poor people must remain poor and they must look poor and a true and easy identification of a poor person is that he is not having a good living accommodation. The rich and powerful people would never tolerate that poor people should also own or be provided with living accommodation and wiping out all the differences between the rich and the poor. Therefore, the poor shall have to continue with low type of houses so that the rich and powerful people could say that they are rich and more powerful and they may invite the people to their house just to tell them that they could construct such a living accommodation.
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