It’s the Age of Redevelopment. Cities have plunged into the idea, and skylines are changing as higher and higher towers pierce the sky. On their part, the blueprints of sky-high buildings that will replace quaint bungalows or outdated tenements set hopes soaring higher than the wildest dreams.
Willy-nilly home owners agree to the idea; sick of peeling paint and stained walls, of staircases that have grown tired with climbing, they are more than ready to ignore the stories their walls whisper, and forget the floors that have felt their footfall for years, and exchange it all for a sparkling new abode.
The reality of the process is quite another story. It starts with packing and sorting, deciding how much of what one has collected in the cupboards and corners over years of living in one’s home needs to be given away or just discarded. It’s a trip down memory lane, as forgotten bits and pieces tug at the heartstrings, evoking emotions that had been buried in the hurly burly of daily living.
Then begins the search for a transit home. Where the next few years must be spent. Some see it as a liberation, and cutting the ties that bound them down to a colony or a locality, they float away to drop anchor in a new environment . Others go further, and change jobs or, asking for transfers, they move to a city that they can explore while they wait.
But the majority, anxious and nervy, shuttle about like boats that have been cut free by a storm, alternately buffeted by doubt or buoyed by hope.
As many have realised, the dream goes sour very quickly. Many a slip exists between the cup of joy that the owner of a brand new redeveloped flat hopes to sip, and the time when it actually reaches his lips. Rules can change, laws can come in that cause impediments, or the builder could be a wolf in disguise, grabbing money from gullible hopefuls.
Court rooms often see entire co-op society-loads of aggrieved house owners trying to get justice and seeking legal means to ensure an errant builder is brought to book. Even those who have landed an honest, well-meaning re-developer may end up in a quandary if the developer finds himself facing problems that slow down his work, or hike his costs.
A proper infrastructure has therefore grown around the concept of redevelopment, with co-op society owners building safeguards into their contracts, adding penalties for delays… all to ensure they are not taken for a ride.
But for every one such ‘awoke’ society, there are countless others, who have no other recourse. They are forced to move to far off places, much further away from their place of work, or have to abandon their jobs to find refuge with relatives in their hometown. A builder playing truant can seal their fate forever. And such cases are not unknown, for without proper education, or a strong support system, they can neither approach the courts, nor afford doing so. For them, torn from their moorings, a new harbour remains a distant dream.
But the wheel continues to turn. Each dreamer believes his dream of a sparkling new flat to replace his dilapidated home will surely be realised.
