Joint families living in palatial houses is now a stuff of fiction. A few generations back, it was the norm. In fact, the big houses were built keeping in mind the growing family, which it was assumed would live together. One or two members may step out and settle faraway, but most people stuck together. This was especially true for business families, as they were tied both personally and professionally.
Post independence, migration to urban India and then to the western world became a trend. So people flooded to cities like Delhi and Mumbai in search of livelihood. Those who went to study abroad grabbed the opportunities available in the developed world. The result was the scattering of families across the world, making us global families. It led to deserted villages and the slow death of large family homes.
Parallelly, with active family planning campaigns, the average size of the Indian family kept going down. Today, we have a substantial number of families with no children or just one child. The number of people who chose to stay unmarried shot up. So, as families, we not just spread ourselves thin geographically, but also shrunk in size. Extreme focus on career and professional growth came in the way of family bonding and size, if I may say.
It all works well while the days are good. But, come bad days in terms of diseases, accidents, bereavements, and we all need our immediate families around. We saw great stress during the pandemic when many children could not perform the last rites of parents or be there with them. Triggered by these events or advancement of age, we all felt the need of being close to our family. We realised the need to balance our independence with family ties. In the meantime, our homes have shrunk with the family size. Houses have given way to apartments that come with limited space. More than space, they are designed not to provide privacy to multiple generations living together, leading to everyday conflicts that everyone wants to avoid.
However, the silver lining I see is in how the Indian families are tackling this situation. I see parents and children, and even siblings buying or renting apartments in the same building or in close vicinity. This gives them the advantage of being with each other in joy and sorrow, celebrating the festivals together. At the same time, you are independent enough to live your life the way you want. The frequency of meeting each other may depend on your mutual relationship but you live with the assurance that you are within an arm’s reach of each other. Children are the biggest gainers, with cousins and grandparents there to pamper them.
Has the real estate industry noticed this trend and started pitching group buying options to families? I am not sure. I assume they would soon. I also see families returning to one hub to be close to each other. So, a south Indian family may have a hub in Bengaluru or Chennai, and a north Indian one in Delhi or Jaipur. It makes sense to build a community living within the families.
Many real estate companies offer community-based living for retirement homes, where they promise that food will be as per the generic requirement of the community. They do not advertise it much, probably due to a fear of backlash. Can this be a return of community-based living, where you live with your extended family or people from same community? Probably.
The advantages would be cultural and emotional. We all like to be surrounded by our own people, with whom we share genes in some way. There is a comfort in relationships you inherit and do not require a fresh emotional investment and trust-building gestation.
The disadvantage would be not being as much exposed to multiple cultures. However, as I said in my column on diabetes, a lot of our lifestyle excesses are coming from the fact that we are in a constant festival and celebration mode by trying to be a part of everyone’s festivities. It derails all our dietary regimes.
With the return of family or community-based real estate, as and when it takes a U-turn from its copy-paste approach, I also foresee a return of local produce. It could be in terms of local vegetable gardens or gaushalas. It may sound laughable in the era of fast deliveries and industrialised products, but health consciousness is bound to bring this back in our life sooner or later. Remember, it took just a few years for millets to be back on our plates.
As it looks to me, the great Indian joint family is slowly, and maybe steadily, making a comeback in a new avatar. They may not live together in one big haveli or share the same kitchen, but may own a bunch of houses next to each other. An option to work from home in the knowledge economy is also going to push in this direction. It would have happened slowly and organically, but the pandemic gave it a two-way push. One, it made us want to live with the family; two, it made work from home highly acceptable. We saw during the pandemic many knowledge workers moving back to their native places, leaving big cities. If they could work for 2-3 years from home, at least a percentage of them can continue to do it for most of their professional lives.
We also see family entrepreneurship coming back in a small way. People are co-founding companies with family members. It’s an interesting time to see the great Indian joint family coming a full circle.
Anuradha Goyal
Author and founder of inditales.com
Follow her on X @anuradhagoyal