Locations, continued.

Locations impact people. Change people. Mold people. Build. Destroy. Even Annihilate.

When my dad applied for immigration to Canada, he did it because it was a fad. It was cool, all his friends were doing it, and baad ki baat to baad men dekhi jaeygi. All too soon, he was here, Canadian. N starry-eyed successful immigrant story here, he arrived bitter and skeptic, wanting to go back Home.

We rented a house, and then scoured the area and bought another house. A house no one could believe our humble demeanor could afford. 

We did. No mortgage, upfront.

And then, the house consumed us. 

(If you think this is about to turn into a cliched horror movie plot, you are right.)

First one to go was my dad. He hated Canada. He hated the house that made him live like a pauper in a mansion. Plumbling, gardening, shovelling feet after feet of unforgiving snow, maintenance, groceries. He grew disenchanted. Restless. Home called him through the howling wind in blistering Toronto cold. He insisted, we must move we must move back

Slowly, his anxiousness spread to all of us like a disease. My mom started having fits. My sister started having seizures. I got terrible anxiety. My brother was depressed. It was a Nightmare.

It still is. We are still in that house. It is still consuming us. Literally.

My dad lost over 80 pounds. His cheeks sunk in, skin hanging off bones on legs, arms, torso. He started walking around like the weight of the world was doubling him over in agony. He became bitter. Quit working. Blistering furious Toronto winter turned into blistering furious angry Abbu.

Locations impact people.

I have never seen a place have the power to cause such utmost decay in a person's life as I have seen in my father's. 

He was at his prime when he came to Canada. Youthful, great career, new house , savings, kids in school, one about to get married.

You want one guess how long we have been in Canada and everything changed?

5 years. 3 if you start counting really where it all went downhill. 3 years destroyed EVERY morsel of sanity any person in our family held.

I am typing this not in melodrama but in horror. There is physical abuse, violence, cursing and swearing like you wouldn't believe. I might quit my job to go back and try and fix the damage a location did.

Maybe I am naive and i can't point fingers at people and blame who did what to whom. Maybe it's easier to blame places and believe ke waqai shayad jagah raas nahee ayee. I don't know. All I know is that the same country that destroyed me, and rebuilt me from ashes, and gave me the greatest love I have ever known, has destroyed my father and changed him into a man I hardly recognize. Physically, mentally and emotionally.

I don't know where to begin looking, where to find one small piece of land that will restore his soul like this land has claimed it.

Shayad jis zameen per maitha taik ker dua manglo wohi zameen kafi hai. Har zameen per matha taik ker dekh leya. Where do you find that zameen.